Living in a fairy tale
by Phoenix hemo
Summary: Santana is in need of a fiancé to get a dream job and Brittany is up for the challenge. But something funny happens on their way to the altar that breaks all the rules and changes the game. Falling in love was never part of the deal. Their little act fools everyone including themselves. When the midnight comes will the fairytale be over or will they live happily ever after?
1. Chapter 1

A/N

OK so new story guys..based on a book i read when i was a teenager. G!P Santana. smut in later chapters. enjoy.

* * *

The storm raged outside, the light in the hallway flickered, and Santana Lopez cast a shadow over the mailboxes, but it didn't matter. She knew by heart what the card on the box above her said:

**Brittany Pierce Apartment 1B**

_Stories Told, Ideas Illuminated Unreal but Not Untrue _

Santana frowned at the card, positive it didn't belong on a mailbox in the dignified old house she shared with three other tenants. That was why she'd rented the apartment in the first place: it had dignity. Santana liked dignity the way she liked calm and control and quiet. It had taken her a long time to get all of those things into her life and into one apartment. Then she'd met her downstairs neighbor.

Her frown deepened as she remembered the first time she'd seen Brittany Pierce in the flesh, practically hissing at her as she shooed a cat away from her rebuilt black Porsche, her long blonde hair cascading around her face like sunshine. Later sightings hadn't improved her first impression, and the memory of them didn't improve her mood now. She wore short dresses in electric colors, and since she was tall, they were very short, and she was always glaring at Santana, her thin brows drawn together under that dumb blue velvet hat she wore pulled down around her ears even in the summer. She looked like somebody from _Little House on the Prairie _on acid, which was why Santana usually took care to ignore her.

But now, staring down at the card on her mailbox, appropriately back lit by the apocalyptic storm, she knew there was a possibility she might actually have to get to know her. And it was her own damn fault.

The thought gave her a headache, so she shoved her mail into her jacket pocket and went up the stairs to her apartment and her aspirin.

* * *

Downstairs, Brittany Pierce frowned too, and cocked her head to try to catch again the sound she'd heard. It had been something between a creaking door and a cat in trouble. She looked over at Charity to see if she was showing signs of life, but Charity was, as usual, a black velvet blob stretched out on the end table Brittany had rescued from a trash heap two streets over. The cat basked in the warmth from the cracked crystal lamp Brittany had found at Goodwill for a dollar. The three made a lovely picture, light and texture and color, silky fur and smooth wood and warm lamp glow. Unbelievably, fools had thrown away all three; sometimes the blindness of people just amazed Brittany.

"Hello?" The petite blonde across the chipped oak table from Brittany waved her hand. "You there? You have the gooniest look on your face."

"I thought I heard something," Brittany told her best friend. "Never mind. Where was I? Oh, yeah. I'm broke." She shrugged at Quinn across from her. "Nothing new."

"Well, you're depressed about it. That's new." Quinn took a sugar cookie from the plate in front of her and shoved the rest toward Brittany with one manicured hand, narrowly missing Brittany's stained glass lamp. The lamp was another find: blue, green, and yellow Tiffany pieces with a crack in one that had made it just possible for her to buy it. The crack had been the clincher for Brittany: with the crack, the lamp had a history, a story; it was real. Sort of like her hands, she tried to tell herself as she compared them to Quinn's. Blunt, paint-stained, no two nails the same length. Interesting. Real.

Quinn, as usual, had missed color and pattern completely and was still on words. "Also, you're the one who has to come up with the bucks for the feline senior cat chow. I should eat so good."

"Right." Brittany scrunched up her face. She hated thinking about money, which was probably why she hadn't had much for the past four years. "Maybe leaving teaching wasn't such a good idea."

Quinn straightened so fast, Charity opened an eye again.

"Are you kidding? This _is _new. I can't believe you're doubting yourself." She leaned across the table to stare into Brittany's piercing blue _eyes_. "Get a grip. Make some tea to go with these cookies. Tell me a story. Do something weird and unpractical so I'll know you're Brittany Pierce."

"Very funny." Brittany pushed her chair back and went to find tea bags and her beat-up copper teakettle. She was sure the tea bags were in one of the canisters on the shelf, but the kettle could be anywhere. She opened the bottom cupboard and started pawing through the pans, books, and paintbrushes that had somehow taken up housekeeping together.

"I'm not kidding." Quinn followed her to the sink. "I've known you for twelve years, and this is the first time I've heard you say you can't do something."

Brittany was so outraged at the thought that she pulled her head out of the cupboard without giving herself enough clearance and smacked herself hard. "Ouch." She rubbed her head through her hair. "I'm not saying I can't make it as an artist." Brittany stuck her head back into the cabinet and shoved aside her cookie sheets long enough to find her teakettle and yank it out. "I believe in myself. I just may have moved too fast." She got up and filled the kettle from the faucet.

"Well, it's not like you ever move slow." Quinn took down canisters one by one, finally finding the tea in a brown and silver square can. "Why did you put the tea in the can that says 'cocoa'? Never mind. Constant Comment or Earl Grey?"

"Earl Grey." Brittany put the kettle on the stove and turned up the heat. "This is a serious moment, and I need a serious tea."

"Which is why I'm drinking Constant Comment." Quinn waggled her slender fingers inside the canister and fished out two tea bags. "I have no serious moments."

"Well, pretend you're having one for me." Brittany sighed, envying Quinn's optimism. Of course, Quinn hadn't quit a safe and solid teaching job to become a painter, or spent the past four years living on her savings until she didn't have any. Brittany felt her head pound. "Quinn, I don't think I can do this anymore. I'm tired of scraping to pay my bills, and I'm tired of trying to sell my paintings to people who don't understand what I'm doing, and I'm tired—" She bit her lip. "I'm so tired of worrying about everything." That was the thing, really; she was worn down from the uncertainty. Like water on a rock; that was what the edge of poverty did to you.

"So what are you going to do?" Quinn asked, but somewhere there was a faint sound, half screech and half meow, and Brittany cocked her head again instead of answering.

"I swear I hear a cat crying," she told Quinn. "Listen. Do you hear anything?"

Quinn paused and then shook her head. "Uh-uh. Your water's starting to boil. Maybe that's it."

Brittany took the kettle off while Quinn took down two mismatched cups and saucers, plunking her Constant Comment tea bag in a Blue Willow cup and Brittany's Earl Grey in the bright orange Fiestaware. Brittany poured the hot water over the bags and said, "Pretty" as the tea color spread through the cups.

"Forget the pretty tea B." Quinn picked up her cup and carried it back to the table. "You're in crisis here. You're out of money and you can't sell your paintings. How's the storytelling going?"

"Budget cuts." Brittany sat down across from her with her own cup and saucer. "Most libraries can't afford me, and it's a slow time for bookstores, and forget schools entirely. They all say I'm very popular and they'll use me again as soon as possible, but in the meantime I'm out of luck."

"Okay." Quinn crinkled her nose as she thought. "How else were you making money? Oh, the jewelry. What about the jewelry?"

Brittany winced with guilt. "That's selling, but Dustin won't give me the money until the end of the month. And he owes me from the end of last month, but he's holding on to that too. It's not that much, about a hundred, but it would help." She knew she should go in and demand her jewelry money, but the thought of Dustin sneering at her wasn't appealing. He looked so much like her father that it was like every summer she'd ever spent with him condensed into two minutes.

Quinn frowned at her. "So how much do you need? To keep the wolf from the door, I mean."

Brittany sighed. "About a thousand. Last month's rent, this month's rent, and expenses. That would get me to when Dustin pays and then maybe something else would turn up." That sounded pathetic, so she took a deep breath and started again. "The thing is, I quit so I could paint, but I'm spending all my time trying to support myself instead of concentrating on my work. I thought I'd have a show by now, but nobody understands what I'm doing. And even though I almost have enough paintings for a show, I'm not sure what I'm doing is right for who am I now anyway."

Quinn sipped her tea. "Ouch. Hot. Blow on yours first. What do you mean, you're not sure what you're doing is right? I love your paintings. All those details."

"Well, that's it." Brittany shoved her tea away to lean closer. "I like the details too, but I've done them. I think I need to stretch, to try things that are harder for me, but I can't afford to. I'm building my reputation on primitive narrative paintings; I can't suddenly become an abstract expressionist."

Quinn made a face. "_That's _what you want to do?"

"No." Brittany shut her eyes, trying to see the paintings she wanted to do, paintings with the emotions in the brushstrokes instead of in the tiny painted details, thick slashes of paint instead of small, rich dots. "I need to work larger. I need—"

The mewling cry that had teased her earlier came again, louder. "That is definitely a cat," Brittany said, and went to open the window.

The wind exploded in and stirred Brittany's apartment into even more chaos than usual. Charity rolled to her feet and meowed her annoyance, but Brittany ignored her and leaned out into the storm.

Two bright eyes stared up at her from under the bush beneath her window.

"You stay right there," she told them, and ran for the apartment door.

"Brittany?" Quinn called after her, but she let the door bang behind her and ran out into the rain. Whatever it was had vanished, and Brittany got down on her hands and knees in the mud to peer under the bush.

A kitten peered back, soaked and mangy and not at all happy to see her. Brittany reached for it and got clawed for her pains. "I'm rescuing you, dummy," she told it when she'd hauled it out from under the bush and it was squirming against her. "Stop fighting me."

Once inside, she wrapped the soaked little body in a dish towel while Quinn and Charity looked at it with equal distaste.

"It looks like a rat," Quinn said. "I can't believe it. You rescued a rat."

Charity hissed, and when Brittany toweled the kitten dry, it hissed too.

"It's a calico kitten." Brittany got down on her knees so she could go eye to eye with the towel-wrapped little animal on the table. "You're okay now."

The mottled kitten glared at her and screeched its meow with all the melody of a fingernail down a blackboard.

"Just what you needed. Another mouth to feed," Quinn said, and the kitten screeched at her too. "And what a mouth it is." Quinn shot a sympathetic look at Charity. "If you want to come live with me, I understand," she told the cat. "I know you're legally dead, but even you must draw the line at living with a rat."

Charity glared at the kitten one more time and then curled up under the light and went back to sleep.

"A kitten doesn't eat much," Brittany said, and went to get food. She found a can of tuna on the shelf over the stove, stuck behind her copy of Grimms' fairy tales, a jar of crimson acrylic paint, and her cinnamon. She took down the can and called back to Quinn. "Want some tuna?"

"No. I just came over to bring you the cookies, and then I got distracted." Quinn and the kitten looked at each other with equal distaste. "You know, this is not a happy rat."

"Stop it, Quinn." Brittany dumped the tuna onto a china plate covered with violets, scooped a third of it into a half round of pita bread, and divided the remaining two thirds between Charity's red cat dish and a yellow Fiestaware saucer. She took the dishes back to her round oak table, dropping Charity's red bowl in front of her as she went. Charity was so enthusiastic about the tuna, she sat up. Brittany put the yellow saucer in front of the kitten and stopped to admire the violets on her plate next to the complementary color of the Fiestaware. _Color and contrast, _she thought. _Clash. That's what life is about._

"Brittany," Quinn said. "I know you're going to freak when I say this, but I can loan you a thousand dollars. I want to loan you a thousand dollars. Please."

Brittany froze and then turned to face her friend. Quinn stood beside the table in the light from the stained glass lamp, looking fragile and cautious and sympathetic, and Brittany loved her for the offer as much as she was angry that the offer had been made. "No. I can make it."

Quinn bit her lip. "Then let me buy a painting. You know how I feel about the Lizzie Borden painting. Let me—"

"Quinn, you already own three of my paintings." Brittany turned back to the cat. "Enough charity already."

"It's not charity." Quinn's voice was intense. "I bought those paintings because I loved them. And I—"

"No." Brittany picked up the plate with her pita on it. "Want some tuna? I can cut this in half."

"No." Quinn sighed. "No, I have papers to grade." She shoved her chair under the table and looked at Brittany regretfully. "If you ever need my help, you know it's there."

"I know." Brittany sat down next to the kitten, trying to concentrate on it instead of on Quinn's offer. "If you come across an easy way to make a thousand bucks, let me know."

Quinn nodded. "I'll try to remember that." The kitten screeched again, and she retreated to the door. "Teach that cat to shut up, will you? Schuester is not going to be amused if he finds out you're keeping a cat in his apartment building. The only reason Charity gets by is that she's ninety-eight percent potted plant."

Once Quinn had gone, Brittany got down on her knees next to the table so she could look the kitten in the eye. "Look, I know we just met," she told the cat. "But trust me on this, you have to eat. I know you've had a rough childhood, but so did I, and I eat. Besides, from now on you're a Pierce cat. And Pierces don't quit. Eat the tuna, and you can stay."

Brittany picked up a tiny piece of tuna and held it under the kitten's nose. The kitten licked the tuna and then took it carefully in its mouth.

"See?" Brittany scratched gently behind the kitten's ears. "Poor baby. You're just an orphan of the storm. Little Orphan Annie. But now you're with me."

Little Orphan Annie struggled farther out of the towel and began to eat, slowly at first and then ravenously. Brittany pushed the unruly fuzz of her hair back behind her ears as she watched the kitten, and then she began to eat her pita.

"You're going to have to lie low," she told the kitten. "I'm not allowed to have pets, so we'll have to hide you from the landlord. And from the girl upstairs too. dark-haired girl in a suit. No sense of humor. Flares her nostrils and scowls a lot. You can't miss her. She kicked Charity once. She looks like she has cats like you for breakfast."

The kitten finished the tuna and licked its chops, its orange and brown fur finally a little drier but still spiky.

"Maybe you're an omen." Brittany stroked her fingers lightly down the kitten's back while it moved on to cleaning the plate. "Maybe this means things will be better. Maybe…"

She began to tell herself the story again, the story of her new life, the one she'd been building for the past four years. She'd given up security to follow her dream, so of course she had to face years of adversity first—four was about right—because without adversity and struggle no story was really a story. Now the next chapter would be her paintings finally selling, and maybe her storytelling career suddenly taking off too. And a prince or a princess would be good. Somebody nice and warm to keep her company. It had been seven months since Artie had moved out—taking her stereo, the creep—and she was about ready to trust somebody again.

Not marry anyone, certainly; she'd already seen what that part of the fairy tale could do to women. Look at her mother. The thought of her mother depressed her, but Annie abandoned the empty plate and began to lick the dampness from her fur, and the scratchy sound brought Brittany back to earth.

Forget the fairytale. Stories were all well and good, but princes weren't stories, they were impossible. Brittany had known that from the time she'd realized that her mother's promises that her father would be back were a bigger fairy tale than anything the Brothers Grimm had ever spun out. Nobody was ever there when you needed someone. _You're born alone and you die alone, _Brittany told herself. _Remember that. Now think of something to get yourself out of this._

Annie curled up and went to sleep. Charity licked up the last of the tuna and fell unconscious with pleasure. Brittany sat silently for a long time, staring at the patterns in her stained glass lamp.

* * *

Upstairs, Santana stretched out on her chrome and black leather couch, bathed in the cool light from her white enameled track lighting, her headache receding but her troubles intact. It didn't help that the mess she was in was her own fault.

She'd lied.

Santana winced. She wasn't a liar; she couldn't ever remember lying before. But she also couldn't remember anything she'd ever wanted as much as she wanted to teach history at quiet, private Prescott College. And she hadn't lied about anything important in her interview for the job: her credentials were all real and impressive, and her goals were honest and good.

Santana closed her eyes. Rationalization. None of that mattered. She'd lied. The memory of her interview came back in painful detail. Dr. Grey, dean of humanities, and Dr. Harper, head of the history department, had interviewed her. Dr. Grey looked like a retired southern cop: big, beery, genial, with an overall air of stupidity. He wore a bow tie in what Santana thought of as a feeble attempt at an academic look. Dr. Harper needed no such camouflage. He looked as if the moisture had slowly seeped out of him over the years, leaving only a dried-up little shell behind horn-rimmed glasses. Santana's dreams of a department headship had begun when she saw that Harper was older than God.

And things had gone well at first. They'd been impressed with her credentials, impressed with her first book, published four years before, impressed with her demeanor, and just impressed with her in general. She knew she was good; she'd sacrificed for years to make sure that she was good, that she'd published in the right places and presented at the right conferences, that her background was above reproach, that she always did and said the right thing. And now the only question was, would they think she was good enough? But that hadn't been the question. The question that Dr. Grey, his fat lips pursing, had asked was "Are you married, Dr. Lopez?"

"No." And then she'd seen the look on Grey's face: regret. Santana hadn't made it as far as she had in a very competitive profession by being slow. "But I'm engaged," she'd finished. Then she'd had a stroke of what at the time had seemed like genius. "Prescott would be the perfect place for us. My girlfriend and I've been waiting to get married until I was established so we could raise our children the old-fashioned way."

Grey didn't just thaw, she blossomed. "Excellent, excellent. Old-fashioned values. You'll definitely be hearing from us again, Dr. Lopez."

Dr. Harper had sniffed.

And Santana had wondered if she was losing her mind. It was bad enough that she'd created a fiancee; she'd really sent herself to hell when she'd babbled about mythical children. And the weird part was, it seemed so true while she'd been saying it. Not the fiancee part, but the idea of settling down with some elegant little woman and reproducing in a small town. The pictures had been there in her head, sunny scenes of neat lawns and well-behaved children in well-ironed shorts. _You're pathetic, Lopez, s_he'd told herself at the time. _And you lied. God's going to make you pay for that. You'll probably get struck by lightning._

But as it turned out, it wasn't lightning that slugged her from behind, but Grey. She'd been invited to speak to the faculty on her research, the standard jobtalk audition for a college position. And, Grey had written, make sure you bring your fiancee.

Right. Santana punished herself with the thought of it and drank more beer. She deserved this. If Prescott wouldn't take her on her own very considerable merits, she should have just let them go. There were other schools. And once she finished the book she was working on—

But she couldn't finish the book. Not at the city university, where she was now, not while teaching three awful, mind-numbing classes. To finish the book she needed someplace like Prescott. And to get Prescott she needed a plan.

Santana shifted on the couch. She actually had two plans. One was to show up without a fiancee and probably not get the job. That one had the benefit of honesty and not much else. The other was to convince somebody to pose as her fiancee, and then if she got the job, she could tell the people at Prescott that the engagement was off. They couldn't take the appointment back. As a plan it wasn't great, which was why she'd put it out of her mind until three days before the interview, but as the deadline approached, it became more attractive. It beat not getting Prescott.

All she needed was a woman who was reasonably bright and reasonably attractive in a sedate sort of way who was willing to lie through her teeth and then quietly disappear. Her first thought had been Quinn in the apartment downstairs. They'd had a brief affair and parted friends. She would probably do it, she knew, but she'd make a mess of it. Quinn was too sharp-looking and too sharp-tongued. She needed a…a wifely-looking woman. A _Little House on the Prairie _kind of woman. A woman who could lie without batting an eye.

Brittany Pierce.

_No, _she thought, but logically, she was her best hope. _Stories told, _her card said, so truth was not one of her virtues. And Quinn had said she was bisexual, and she trusted Quinn's judgment if not her restraint. Brittany Pierce was about six inches taller than she was, with a slim and slender body; if she put her in one of those cocktail dresses, Grey might go for it. Since Brittany seemed to hate her for some reason, she'd probably have to be in desperate need of money before she'd agree to spend any amount of time with her, but she didn't look rich. Desperation could drive a person to do things he or she would never contemplate ordinarily.

_I should know, _Santana thought gloomily, and stared at the ceiling. _Make a note to call Quinn about the Pierce woman, s_he told herself, and then realized that she didn't have time to make notes. It was Tuesday. She was due in Prescott on Friday. She felt dizzy for a moment, and realized it was because she was holding her breath, her response to tension for as far back as she could remember. "Breathe, Lopez," her soccer coach had yelled at her in high school the first time she'd passed out during a game. "You gotta keep breathing if you want to play the game."

She inhaled sharply through her nose and then stretched out her hand for the phone and punched in Quinn's number.

Five minutes later, Santana was listening to Quinn laugh herself sick. "You told them what?" she gasped at her when she could talk. "I can't believe it."

"Knock it off Fabray," Santana said. "It's not funny. This is my career at stake here."

"And we all know that's more important to you than any of your body parts." Quinn snickered. "I love this. You want me to be the little woman S? No problem. I'll get one of those dweeby little dresses—"

"No." Santana broke in before Quinn could get too attached to the idea. "I need a professional liar, somebody who won't start giggling when the chips are down."

"Brittany." Quinn's voice went up a notch in approval. "She's wonderful, absolutely trustworthy."

"Except she tells lies for a living."

"She tells _stories,_" Quinn corrected Santana with some heat. "Unreal but not untrue, that's what Brittany says. And anyway, it's not like you're lily-white here, bud. You're the one who created the Little Woman Who Could."

Santana exhaled in frustration.

"I can't believe you lied in the first place," Quinn went on. "I would have said it wasn't possible. You really are a stick-in-the-mud, but maybe this will break you out of that rut—"

Santana glared at the phone. "I like my rut. I have to go Q. Good-bye."

"Because you really are solidifying before my eyes—" Quinn said, and she hung up.

Oh, God. She let her head fall back against the leather chair back. Three days and no fiancee. She was in big trouble, and her only hope was a nutcake. There had to be a better way. The last thing she needed was to pin all her hopes for the future on Brittany Pierce.

She got up and got herself another beer.

* * *

Brittany spent the next morning trying to drum up work and failing miserably. When she got home, the kitten had escaped and was sitting on the doorstep waiting for her. So was the landlord, a man Quinn called Grumpy Schuester. _Oh, no, _Brittany thought, and then straightened her shoulders and went to save her cat, marching past the dark-haired latina from upstairs who was washing her nasty black car. Brittany disliked her car almost as much as she disliked her; it looked like something Darth Vader would drive.

Schuester pointed at the kitten as if it were a cockroach. "That's a cat."

"Yes, I know." Brittany took a deep breath and then smiled at him. Brittany knew she was charming, God had given her something better than beauty—a glowing, wide-mouthed, man-melting smile, courtesy of her mother and a long line of native dutch women who'd dazzled their way through history. It was her best physical weapon and it never failed her. It didn't now.

Schuester smirked at her.

Behind her she heard the cat kicker turn off the water just in time for Annie to tear out one of her ungodly meows.

Schuester flinched. "Brittany, you're a month behind on the rent, and you're not allowed to have pets."

"I know." Brittany pumped out more wattage on her smile. "You know I'll pay the rent. I've lived here for eight years, and I've never let you down, have I?"

Schuester closed his eyes. "No, but the cat—"

"I'm only keeping the cat until its owners get back," Brittany said truthfully, since she was sure Annie's owner would never get back to this apartment house. "It's a very valuable cat, you know." She dropped her voice to make Schuester a conspirator with her. "One of a kind. An Alizarin Crimson. Very unusual voice. Don't tell anyone, or there'll be catnappers all over the place." Schuester blinked and she let her voice go back up to its natural register. "I'm sure Quinn won't mind, and the people upstairs will never know. It's such a _little _cat."

"But they do know," Schuester said. "Dr. Lopez knows. She's right here."

Brittany turned to look at the cat kicker. She was short and petite but there was something about her that made her as threatening as she'd told Annie, her hair thick and black and her eyes dark and intense. She leaned on the car watching them, and she didn't look angry, she looked calculating.

Brittany went for it. "Do you mind, Dr. Lopez?" She hit the latina with her smile in the best tradition of her ancestresses.

Santana blinked. And then she grinned at her. It wasn't the usual feeble smirk that men gave her after she'd blasted them, it was a wide-awake grin. Brittany felt something stir inside her at the sight . "I don't mind at all, Miss Pierce. It's an honor to have an Alizarin Crimson in the building."

Brittany felt uneasy, but she wasn't about to look a gift jerk in the mouth, even if she did kick cats. "Thank you, Dr. Lopez. That's very sweet of you." She smiled at the latina again, and Santana's own smile widened.

Strange woman.

"I'll have the rent for you soon," she promised Schuester, and he went off, shaking his head.

Brittany scooped up the kitten and turned to go, but the cat kicker called her back. "Could I have a word with you, Miss Pierce?"

_I knew it, _Brittany told herself. _It was too good to be true. _She took a deep breath and turned back, smiling her brains out, prepared to do whatever she had to do to keep Annie from becoming an orphan again.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N

Thanx for the wonderful reviews and responses guys...you guys are awesome..enjoy..I will update this story almost daily.. I wrote 5 chapters for this today..anyway let me know what you guys think:)..

* * *

Santana came out from around the car, dressed only in black sweats, a tight white tanktop and incredibly old white sneakers. Her body was beautifully proportioned, but it didn't matter. Brittany knew about proportion from art class, but she knew about Santana from life. _Yes, she's pretty, but forget it, _she told herself. _She kicks cats. She drives an evil black car. And Quinn says she has track lighting. _Definitely not somebody she wanted to spend time with. Still, she did need to be nice to keep her cat. She hit the latina with her megawatt smile again. Santana grinned back, immune. Oh, well. "Thank you so much for saving my kitten, Dr. Lopez. If there's ever anything I can do in return…"

"There is. I have a business proposition for you." Santana's smile disappeared. "Strictly business."

Brittany snorted mentally. It would be strictly business. the latina probably didn't have the imagination to make a pass.

Which was a relief, because when she turned her down, she'd probably kick her cat. "Business, Dr. Lopez?"

"Santana." She stepped closer and took Brittany's elbow. "Why don't we go in and talk about it?"

Oh, great. She was an elbow taker. A steerer of people. Brittany removed her elbow from Santana's grasp. "How about my place? Herbal tea?"

Santana closed her eyes, said "Wonderful," and followed Brittany into the house.

Santana stopped inside the apartment door. The place looked as though it had been ransacked. There were drawers open, papers everywhere, lampshades askew, books on the floor, and a huge black cat sprawled out in the middle of the mess, doing an excellent impression of death. Santana waited for Brittany to scream and call the police, but she just dropped the little calico cat into an overstuffed chair full of yarn and clothes and stepped over the black cat to move toward the kitchen.

It must always look like this. How could she stand it?

Brittany pulled her bright blue velvet hat from her head, and her long hair fell down in tangled little kinks, blonde curls with deep glints of red clips against the bright, bright blue of her loose hip-length sweater. Under the sweater she wore an ankle-length skirt checked in hot rose and electric blue. Santana winced at all the color.

Then she opened the refrigerator and got the latina a bottle of beer, and her approval rating rose.

Santana took it gratefully. "No herbal tea?"

Brittany grinned at her, a nice, cheerful grin with none of the dazzle of her earlier beam. "I thought you'd prefer this."

"I do. Do you have an opener?"

Brittany took the bottle back and looked around absently for an opener. Not finding one, she hooked the cap on the edge of the counter and smacked it with her hand to pop it. Then she handed the bottle back.

Santana checked to see if there were glass chips on the top. _Remember, you need her. Be polite Lopez_.

"That was very efficient Brittany. Thank you."

Santana sat opposite Brittany at the big round oak table. Brittany turned on the stained glass lamp that stood to one side, and it cast a Technicolor kaleidoscope on the wall and ceiling. More color. Everywhere the latina looked, color and clash. How did Brittany sleep in this place?

"So a business proposition." Brittany tilted her head at Santana. "But I'm not a businesswoman Santana."

Santana studied her in the lamplight: mass of blonde hair, piercing blue eyes spaced over a thin long nose sprinkled with freckles, a thin, rosy lipped mouth. Under all her bright and weird clothes Santana saw a beautiful woman who could stop anyone's heart with just a smile. If she put her in a real dress instead of clothes three sizes too big for her, she could pass for a super model. She wasn't santana's type—she liked lethally elegant blondes, the tinier the better—but she was definitely beautiful and capable of making the old proffesors at Prescott fawn over her. Santana cheered up considerably.

"I need a favor." Santana leaned forward, exerting all her charm. "A practical, extremely confidential business favor." Santana saw Brittany draw her eyebrows together at the word "confidential," and added, "It's not illegal. And I'll pay your back rent."

The blonde eyebrows flew up. "That's three hundred dollars."

Santana nodded. "I know. I'm desperate. I need a fiance for twenty-four hours." That sounded a little odd, so Santana clarified it. "Only a fiance. _A platonic _fiance."

"I understand that you're not proposing to me Santana." Brittany folded her hands on the table like a polite child. "You can stop making that clear."

Santana relaxed a little. "Good." She took a swig of her beer, amazed at how much more difficult this whole thing was than she'd imagined. It wasn't just the embarrassment of admitting what she'd done. It was also Brittany Pierce. There was something about dealing with this woman that reminded her of the way she'd felt messing around with the chemistry set she'd had when she was a kid. Volatile and Unpredictable.

Her voice broke Santana's train of thought. "Why do you need a fiance?"

Santana took a deep breath and told her, haltingly at first but then becoming more confident as she explained, and Brittany didn't throw her out or go off into fits of laughter.

"Well you're in a mess," she agreed when the latina was finished. "But I don't see how you think I could help you. I'm hardly the wifely type."

"No, but you could be for twenty-four hours. I'll pay for a new dress. All you have to do is pretend to be the wifely type for the space of a speech and a cocktail party. I'll have you out of there by Friday at midnight and back home by Saturday afternoon."

Her laughter spurted, something between a giggle and a snort. "So you pick me up out of the gutter, and I get a new dress, and I pretend to be something I'm not, and then at midnight I run away and turn back into a pumpkin." Her grin widened. "It's a Cinderella story."

"I guess so." Whimsy was not Santana's strong suit.

"And you get the job of your dreams and the time to finish your book." She tilted her head. "I like this story. Everybody wins."

"Even Schuester," Santana said. "He'll get your back rent."

"And I get to keep Annie." Brittany smiled at the latina, warm with gratitude. "That was nice of you to tell Schuester you didn't mind, since you didn't know whether I'd do this or not, and you hate cats."

Santana looked at her, puzzled. "I don't hate cats."

Brittany's smile cooled. "I saw you kick Liz once."

Santana frowned at her. "Liz?"

Brittany nodded to the black cat curled up among the debris on the floor. It hadn't moved at all since the latina had been there. Maybe it was dead. Santana fought back an urge to poke it with her foot to see if it was breathing, and that brought back her earlier encounter. "Oh, yeah. I didn't kick it, I just nudged it out of the way with my foot. It walked on my car."

Her smile disappeared completely. "The _nerve _of her."

Oh, great. Now she was off on a tangent, mad at her for something she hadn't even done. "Forget the cat. Will you do it?"

She thought about it, setting her jaw, and Santana had a sinking insight into how stubborn the blonde could probably be. Then she said "Yes," nodding sharply. "For a thousand dollars."

Santana jerked back. "A thousand?"

"That's what I need." Brittany smiled at the tiny latina, the smile that had probably sunk a thousand ships in her lifetime. "I'm not really going to be Cinderella unless you rescue me completely, you know."

When Brittany smiled at her like that, it was hard to think. Imagine what that smile could do in Prescott. M_ake a note to have her smile a lot in Prescott_, Santana told herself, and gave in. "All right. A thousand dollars."

She stuck her hand across the table, and Brittany took it. Her grip was firm and warm. "It's a deal, then," she said. "Ooh a Cinderella deal."

"Great," Santana said through clenched teeth. Just what she needed, a child bride who still believed in fairy tales. "Are you free tomorrow afternoon about one so we can rehearse this story?"

Brittany nodded. "For a thousand dollars, I can be very free."

"Good." Santana stood up and patted her on the head. "I'll see you tomorrow, then."

Brittany was still glaring at the door when Santana closed it behind her.

A cat kicker. An elbow grabber. A head patter.

"This may be a Cinderella deal," Brittany told the cats, "but trust me, she's no prince or princess or whatever."


	3. Chapter 3

Special authors note..

Hey guys..well i told you guys this is based on a book i read and it was pointed to me that i should put the original author's details.. Well the original book was called "A Cinderella Deal" it was written by a lady called Jennifer Cruise..I took the first two chapters from the book and changed only a few things but now that the story is setup it will be completely different from the book..the plot will be the same but it will have a Brittana feel and it'll be different..hope you guys will like for those who asked about the book that this is based on, go on read it..it's an awesome book and it will be different than my fic so no spoilers.. So go read and enjoy that book..oh and thanx for all the reviews guys..it's an awesome book and one of my favorites and i hope you guys will enjoy it too..


	4. Chapter 4

A/N

Sorry for the previous update. anyway here's the new one..hope you guys enjoy it.

* * *

Santana picked Brittany up at one the next day. She'd been having doubts all morning, and when she saw the outfit her fiancé was wearing it didn't help the cause. Brittany was dressed in a long bright blue dress that was almost as long as Santana was and at least two sizes bigger and hid completely whatever shape the blonde had, and on her head again was that damn blue velvet hat. _Where the hell did she get these clothes from?_ Brittany wasn't fat; she looked like she had a nice slim and slender body. But she'd look bigger if she stood next to Santana coz the latina was practically a size zero.

Brittany looked at the latina standing near her black car dressed in a black skirt and a blazer over a white shirt. She looked smart and sophisticated. Brittany couldn't help but notice the latina's tan legs which looked smooth and long. They probably looked longer than they were because of the 4" heels the latina was wearing. Brittany felt her stomach turning in a weird but a nice way. She realized she was probably staring so she shook herself out of the thought of those legs wrapped around her waist and walked towards the latina. Brittany smiled brightly at the latina and Santana returned the smile and held the passenger door open for Brittany. The blondes smile disappeared instantly and she looked at the car as if it were road kill.

"What?" Santana asked her. "What's wrong now?"

"Your car is evil," Brittany told the latina in a low creepy voice which made Santana think of the kid from the Shining. "This car needs an exorcist."

Santana shuddered and looked at the blonde with an astonished look. "Brittany this car is a Porsche. I rebuilt it myself. This is a _great _car."

"But it's black and long and low and it looks like hell on wheels." Brittany looked at Santana with a disapproving look. "I can't believe a college professor would drive something like this."

Santana frowned at her. Brittany's thoughts of her car weren't new. Santana knew everyone who saw her precious baby thought the same way. Everyone said that it's not her type of a car and wondered how the hell she could afford a Porsche. When Santana was in her final year of college she used to work part time at a garage. Once she went to a scrap yard with her boss to look for some parts for a car he was building and that's when Santana found the Porsche. She fell in love with it instantly even though it was just a frame. She wondered why anyone would throw away something so beautiful. So in a moment that could only be described as _a moment of absolute insanity_ Santana bought the frame. But that was only the beginning. It took her more than five years and more money than it would've cost her to buy a new car to get the car fixed up and running again. But that didn't matter to the latina. The car was her baby and her proudest possession and she glared at the blonde that was sneering at her baby like it was some piece of shit.

"Well after Friday, you'll never have to ride in it again," she told the blonde through gritted teeth while scowling at her. "Just get in."

"Yeah, but I'll have to look at it. It's like living upstairs from Beelzebub."

"Thank you Brittany, I'll keep that in mind now. Will you please get in?" Santana asked, trying hard not to just forget the whole deal and coming clean with the Prescott professors. Maybe teaching at community college won't be too bad. Brittany the resentful look on the latina's face and got in the car without any further comments about the car and as soon as she got in Santana slammed the door close. Santana was muttering to herself and thinking how some women had no appreciation for finer thing in life and just her luck that Brittany was one of them.

"So where are we going?" Brittany asked the still scowling latina when she got in. Santana started the car and drove in silence for a few minutes trying to calm herself. She fished in her jacket pocket and handed the blonde a note that said "Rings. Dress. Lunch."

"We're gonna need rings," Santana told the blonde, used to repeating everything to her classes when she taught. "and a dress for you. I could've let you borrow from me but you're about 5" taller than me so I don't think they'll fit. And after the dress shopping we'll have lunch so we can come up with a good story." Brittany nodded in agreement. The latina looked over at the blonde in her bright blue dress and hat and winced. "We'll get you a white or black dress."

Brittany pouted at her. "But I like color. Ooooh let's get a pink one or yellow?"

Santana shook her head and turned her attention back to the road. "No Brittany. I can see that you like color but for this weekend, you're wearing black or white." Santana looked at Brittany from the corner of her eyes for her reaction and caught her _pouting _harder. "And please stop doing that. You look like I just killed your puppy."

Brittany sighed heavily and stopped pouting. "I'm beginning to regret this."

Hearing the blonde's sad voice made Santana's heart feel heavier for some reason. "Think of the thousand dollars," she told the blonde, remembering how grateful she'd been the night before. Brittany smiled at her and Santana couldn't help but smile back at her.

The blonde nodded happily. "And Annie."

_That damn cat again_. "You know Brittany I would have let you keep the cat anyway."

"Really?"

"Sure. You look like you could use a friend."

Brittany looked at her with a small frown. "I have a friend. I have several."

"Oh sorry. You just never seem to have much company." Santana looked over at her apologetically and saw her pouting again. "Cut that out Brittany."

Brittany obediently put a tiny smile on her face. "Sorry. Anyway Artie didn't like company. And after a while my company didn't like Artie, so they didn't come back."

"Artie." Santana tried to remember the guy. "Was it the thin brown haired guy? He played the stereo too loud."

Brittany nodded at her. "Yeah he's a musician. He's got hearing problems from standing too close to the speakers onstage. That's how I met him. Somebody turned the amps up at a concert one night and he fell off the stage at my feet and cut his head, and I had a Band-Aid, and he said he'd never met anybody who'd brought a Band-Aid to a rock concert before."

Santana looked over at her, flabbergasted. That had to be one of the blonde's stories. "You're not serious are you? You are making that up?"

Brittany pouted at her again. "No I'm not. It's true. He asked me out that night and week later he moved in."

Santana stared at the blonde for a few minutes to see if she had even the slightest trace of humor in her face and moved her eyes back to the road, feeling frustrated when she couldn't find any. After one week Brittany had let some complete stranger move in_. A week. Who does that? __She has no common sense. Not that it's any of my business. What do I care anyway?_

But when you think about it what they were doing was pretty much Artie's business. Santana was not at all the type to ever move in with a woman or even to be with the same woman for more than a week or two but if she ever did find herself in a committed relationship and living with a woman, she certainly won't be happy letting her girlfriend pretend to be someone else's fiancé. She turned to give another quick glance to the blonde. "Brittany, is Artie ok with what we're doing?"

"He's gone."

Santana felt happy hearing that and she couldn't understand why. She convinced herself it was because otherwise it would've been a problem for her plan. She looked at Brittany again who was staring out the window. She didn't seem too sad that Artie was gone

"Well, thanks for turning down the stereo. I really appreciate it."

"I don't have a choice Artie took it with him when he went." Brittany kept staring out the window, oblivious of Santana's reaction. Santana thought Brittany sounded a little sad that time and though it was really none of her business she couldn't help but ask.

"Was it his stereo?"

"No."

Santana looked at the blonde dumbfounded. Artie must really be a fucking idiot. Brittany lived in a really great apartment in a nice neighborhood and she didn't even care he was deaf because he was too dumb to move away from a speaker. And the blonde was really beautiful under her weird clothes and behavior and she seemed like a really nice person. Santana had seen Artie a couple of times and honestly Brittany was way out of his league even with her quirks. But not only had the jerk left her, he'd stolen her stereo on the process as well. Santana couldn't help but feel like finding Artie and give him a good kick. Immersed in her thoughts she almost drove past the jewelry store. She pulled in front of the small shop and parked the car. Unbuckling her seatbelt she turned towards the blonde.

"Hey try not to lose your grip in there ok? I'm a college professor, not a millionaire"

Brittany gave her a small smile obediently and followed Santana in to the small quaint shop.

Brittany walked behind Santana and was looking all around the small shop and bumped into Santana when she stopped in front of the case that held the diamond rings. Santana looked at the rings in the case trying to find the cheapest ring she could get. Brittany stood next to her and looked at the rings that sat there like ice on black velvet. She poked Santana on the side and shook her head. "I don't like diamonds. They're too snobbish and cold. I like pearls."

Santana was extremely grateful to the blonde. She gave her a sincere smile. "Thank you," Brittany just shrugged. She knew Santana thought she was being nice and trying to save latina money but the truth was Brittany really did hate diamonds and preferred pearls.

To her pearls were much better, they looked warm and real, almost like they were alive. She took Santana by the hand and dragged her to the case where the pearls were. Santana pointed to one ring immediately, an old-fashioned carved band with a circle of small pearls surrounding a tiny sapphire center. "This one," Santana told the clerk. Then she turned to Brittany and said, "It's a natural. Old-fashioned. Harper will love it."

Brittany bit her cheek trying to restrain herself from telling Santana then she should probably give it to Harper, since it wasn't what Brittany wanted at all. She liked the one which stood right next to the one Santana picked. A heavy chased-silver band holding twisted free-form pearls. But Santana had told her earlier to develop some tact and Brittany was working hard on it. Santana was paying her well and she didn't want to mess anything up. So she smiled warmly at the latina.

"Yes, that one is nice. But I like this one better." She showed the ring she wanted. "I like freshwater pearls."

'"Forget it Brittany. Pack the Daisy ring," Santana told the salesclerk in a hurried voice.

Brittany noticed that the sales clerk was frowning at the latina. It was small shop and the light was quite dim in the store. When the sales clerk was taking Brittany's ring size he treated Brittany like an abused child. The blonde looked younger than she really was and people had mistaken her age a lot before and Brittany figured she could get away with it here too. Santana was being quite rude and Brittany wanted to show the latina she shouldn't mess with her. After the sales clerk took her ring size Brittany linked her arm with Santana's and rested her head on the latina's shoulder. She smiled at the latina lovingly and innocently. Santana raised a brow wondering what she was up to. In the sweetest voice Brittany told Santana "Ok we'll take that ring now, baby." She beamed at the shocked latina innocently. "But on my eighteenth birthday can I have the other one? Please baby, please?" She batted her eyelashes at the latina.

The clerk glared at Santana and Santana looked flabbergasted.

Brittany kissed the latina on her cheek and turned to the sales clerk and beamed at him. "She's so good to me. I don't know why Mom and Daddy don't like her."

The clerk shook his head in disgust and went to ring the sale.

Brittany met Santana's eyes smiling as innocently as she could trying hard not to laugh out loud at the flustered latina.

Santana wasn't amused at all. "Listen, _baby_, you're cute, but there's no way in hell you can pass for eighteen. Stop causing problems."

Brittany smiled at her mischievously. "Yeah right. you haven't seen anything yet Dr. Lopez. That guy thinks I'm underage. You perv." She playfully pushed the scowling latina towards the sales counter.

Santana scowled harder at her. "Part of the deal is that you behave like a normal adult."

"In Prescott," Brittany pointed out. "We're not in Prescott yet. So let's go pervy pervson. Your baby needs a dress" She winked at the latina and went out of the store.

Santana scowled harder.

* * *

Back at the car, Santana held the door open for Brittany and checked her watch, frowning. They were taking much more time than she thought they would. Brittany gritted her teeth and got in. Brittany hated schedules and timetables. They were too much work and they produced nothing but pressure or guilt. Santana quickly got in and put her seatbelt on. Then she started driving again and asked the blonde "Do you think we can get a dress without you behaving like a 10 year old?"

Brittany narrowed her eyes looking at the latina. "You never know."

"Brittany c'mon. Please give me a break." Santana pleaded, hating how her voice sounded. The latina was not used to submitting to people but she was helpless. Her future depended on the blonde and she didn't wanna screw it up in any way.

Shopping for a dress took exactly fifteen minutes. Brittany pulled Santana into a thrift shop and took a plain white cocktail dress off a sale rack at the back of the store. She walked toward the latina, watching as Santana surveyed the place, realizing everything in it was used, and said "Brittany not here," but Brittany was ready for her. She'd been hanging out with the latina for only a very short time, but already she knew the smaller girl like a book.

"Trust me Santana," she said. "I tried this dress on once but put it back because it made me look like a dweeb-brained virgin. It'll go great with the ring." She gave the latina a toothy grin. Brittany noticed the store clerk coming towards then gave Santana a seductive smile. Santana didn't notice the shop clerk and stared at the blonde.

"It'll fulfill all your fantasies, Big mama." Brittany purred at the latina. Santana turned pink and looked at the blonde dumbfounded. The thrift store clerk cleared his throat behind them and looked at Santana with disgusted interest. Santana turned red with embarrassment. She snatched the dress out of Brittany's hand and gave it to the clerk.

"Stop doing that Brittany," Santana hissed at the blonde and quickly paid for the dress and dragged the blonde out just like Brittany knew the latina would, just to get them out of the store soon. Santana held Brittany's hand and walked towards the car and held the door open for her once again. After the blonde got in she walked to the other side and got in. She buckled herself in put the car in drive.

"Ok now let's go to lunch and get this started."


	5. Chapter 5

A/N

Kinda similar to the book. i didn't change much. i love this story and feel bad to change a lot. i hope you guys will still enjoy it.

* * *

From the thrift shop the odd couple went to a deli. Brittany was sitting across the latina with her arms crossed watching the smaller woman eat. She resented Santana because of all she stood for, including plain colored clothing and daisy rings. "So Dr. Lopez, tell me about you. What were you like a kid? Where did you grow up?"

"A little place in Ohio. Sidney." Santana bit into her sandwich with an unusual enthusiasm, and Brittany instantly remembered Quinn telling her about how enthusiastic the latina was in bed. _Stop it Brittany. remember the car and the ring and the dress.. not to mention she kicked your cat. She kicked my pussy. That might be hot.. especially if.., no no.. oh god.. new thought new thought.. _ Brittany shook her head and tried to maintain her composure. "Sydney who?"

Santana stared at the blonde for a second contemplating whether the blonde was serious. She shook her head and swallowed. "No, Sidney is the name of the town where I lived. We were the Sidney Yellow Jackets. I still have my letterman jacket if you want to wear it. Harper would think that was great."

Brittany frowned. "Yellow Jackets? You mean like bees?"

Santana nodded. "Yeah our colors were black and yellow."

Brittany stared at her, incredulous while she attacked her sandwich again. She tried hard not to laugh out loud. "So you guys were the Killer Bees from Sidney, Ohio?"

Santana looked up at the amused blonde with an annoyed look. "Hey, I got a soccer scholarship."

Brittany smirked at her and shook her head and picked up her spoon. She was having a salad which was much healthier than Santana's meatball sandwich. "My wife, the Killer Bee," she said, smiling to herself while trying to pick out the olives from her salad.

Santana ignored the blonde's comments and went on talking. "You know Ohio is a big football state."

Brittany was not paying attention to what was being said the latina and continued thinking out loud. "So does that make me the queen bee?"

"As a matter of fact, my scholarship was to Ohio State." Santana continued not paying attention to her companion's ramblings.

"Which would make you a drone."

"It wasn't a great scholarship."

"It would explain why you've got such boring taste."

"But it didn't really matter, because I had a full ride on an academic scholarship."

Brittany got a faraway look on her face. "We could live in a little cottage called The Hive."

Santana noticed the look on Brittany's face and stopped. "Brittany, are you even listening to me?"

Brittany put her spoon down and batted her eyes at the latina. "Of course, my sweetheart. You were a soccer hero and got a full ride to Ohio State. You dated the prom queen or were the prom queen, you were president of your senior class, you were voted most likely to succeed, and your teachers adored you. And you lost your virginity as a sophomore after the first game."

Santana blinked at her. "How did you know all that?"

Brittany looked smug. "You've got preppy written all over you, baby. The only thing I'd never have guessed was that you were a Killer Bee." She bit into her sandwich, happy to have nailed the latina.

Santana put down her sandwich and smiled at the blonde. "You were in Art Club. You were in Drama Club. You were in National Honor Society. You wore glasses and weird clothes. You wrote poetry, you got straight A's in English, and you dated guys and girls who were very serious about Life. You didn't lose your virginity until college, and then it was a great disappointment. You've spent your entire life hoping that a former soccer star from Sidney, Ohio, would ask you to marry her and move to Prescott, Ohio, so you could have lots of kids and become a Republican."

Brittany swallowed and grinned amusedly at her. "Hmmm you were doing pretty good baby, until you got to the former soccer star from Sidney, Ohio."

"Well _baby_, for the weekend, pretend the rest is true too."

Brittany stared at the smaller woman trying to understand her. Santana must have had a repressed childhood, the kind she would have had if she'd had to live with her father for more than summers. Santana probably had one of those pushy mothers. "Ok so does your mother like me?"

"My mother doesn't like anybody, including me." Santana replied emotionlessly.

Brittany put her spoon down, suddenly not hungry. "That's awful Santana."

Santana shrugged. "She's not an emotional woman. She doesn't dislike me. I'm fine. She leaves me alone. I've seen people whose mothers call every weekend to see if they're married yet."

"That's my mother." Brittany picked up her spoon again.

"And your dad calls you 'cupcake.' " Santana took another bite of her sandwich.

_Fat chance_. "_My dad _doesn't call me anything," Brittany said. "What's your father like?"

Santana chewed and swallowed. "Dead."

The lousy memories of her father disappeared under an onslaught of sympathy, and she let her spoon drop once again "Oh. Oh, Santana, I'm sorry."

Santana shook her head. "It's no big deal Britt. He died when I was thirteen. He got to see me kick a goal in my first junior high game, though."

"Oh, good." The use of the nickname didn't go unnoticed by the blonde but she was more distracted by a young Santana losing her dad. Brittany thought of Santana alone at all her other games. The story built in her mind—the brave young athlete looking at the empty place in the stands after every goal, searching for the father who wasn't there, who wasn't ever going to be there—and her eyes welled with tears.

"Stop it Britt." Santana handed her a napkin. "That was twenty-five years ago. I barely remember what he looked like. Now tell me about your father."

Brittany blotted her tears and pulled herself together. "There's not much to tell. He left."

_You had to ask, didn't you Lopez_? Santana told herself. "That must have hurt."

Brittany shrugged and swallowed. "He left when I was one. I'm over it now."

Santana tried to think of something sympathetic to say. "Oh." _good one moron_

"I used to spend my summers with him and he'd try to make me neat and well-behaved so I wouldn't embarrass him. When I turned sixteen, I wouldn't go anymore. So I haven't seen my father much since then."

"Oh." It sounded messy, and Santana really didn't want to talk about it. "So did your mom remarry?"

"No." Brittany fished a pickle from her salad with such elaborate indifference that Santana knew she was upset. "She's waiting for my dad to come back."

"What?"

"I know." Brittany nibbled her pickle. "Even when I was a little kid, I knew it wasn't going to happen. But she still thinks he'll come back. She just can't see reality."

_Ah so it's genetic_, Santana thought, but all she said was "Well she must have loved him very much."

Brittany looked thoughtful. "I don't know. It was very romantic the way they met. He saw her behind the counter in a flower shop she worked in, and he swept her off her feet and into his limo, and I guess they were really crazy about each other for a while, and then the crazy part wore off for him, and he got a good look at what he'd married and didn't like it." Brittany shrugged. "He's a very conservative person. Very proper, very serious." She met Santana's eyes. "Like you." Santana wasn't sure what to say, but she went on. "And my mother's sort of… fluffy. I don't think she ever caught on that she wasn't what he wanted. I mean, from her point of view, she was doing all the right things, being a good little wife. He just wanted somebody more sophisticated, somebody who fit with his reality. So he found that somebody and left."

"Ouch."

"Yeah." Brittany sighed. "But she still thinks it's just this error he made, and sooner or later he'll remember she's his one true love." She shrugged.

"Sooner or later? How long has it been?"

"Thirty-three years."

"Your mother is freaking nuts," Santana said, and winced. "Sorry. I didn't mean…"

"I don't think she's actually nuts," Brittany said. "I think she's just detached from reality. It's a coping skill."

She met Santana's eyes and read her mind. "I am not detached from reality. I'm perfectly capable of taking short vacations from it, but I always know how to get back."

"Good. Try not to go on vacation this weekend. What do I call your mom?"

"Pansy."

Santana looked revolted. "Why?"

"Because that's her name."

Santana shook her head in disbelief. "Okay. Your mom is Pansy. What's she like?"

Brittany thought about her mother. What could you say about Pansy? "She's little," Brittany said finally. "Nothing like me. Blond. Cute. Tiny. She'd go bananas for this ring." Brittany narrowed her eyes at the latina. "She'd go bananas for you too. The Beautiful, Educated, Successful latina come to steal her little Cinderella away. Just like prince charming, well princess charming."

Santana looked quelling. "Frankly, my dear, I never thought of you as a Cinderella."

Brittany didn't quell. "I never thought of you as a Killer Bee either. The things you find out when you're engaged to someone. What's your mother's name?"

"Gertrude."

"Gertrude? For real? Gertrude Lopez?"

"Her maiden name was Gertrude Schmidt."

Brittany nodded. "A German. I knew it." She sucked in her breath suddenly. "Oh, my God, I can't possibly marry you."

Santana put her sandwich down, alarmed. "Why?"

"My name." Brittany invested the words with as much tragedy as possible.

"Brittany?"

"Brittany Lopez." She made a retching face. "Disgust-ing."

Santana grinned. "Cute. Sounds like a stripper."

"Maybe that's how we met." Brittany perked up. "I was stripping and—"

"No"

"Ok ok fine, then." Brittany tried to make her voice reasonable. "How did we meet? We should meet cute."

"No, we shouldn't." Santana pointed a finger at her. "Forget the fiction. We met because we live in the same building. We lie as little as possible."

"That's no good. I'll think of something," Brittany said, and Santana said, "No, you won't," and went back to her sandwich.

"Ok fine grumpy." Brittany pushed her empty plate away, prepared to concentrate. "Brothers or sisters?"

"Two brothers, Lionel and Michael. Leo and Mic."

"Santana, Lionel, and Michael? as in Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson and Carlos Santana?"

"Dad believed in role models. What about you?"

"I believe in role models," Brittany said, getting ready to tell Santana about Rosa Parks, and then she realized that the latina meant her family. "Oh. Two stepsisters. Heather and Elizabeth. Very chic."

"Got it." Santana finished her sandwich and looked at her watch.

_Am I boring you_? Brittany thought, but all she said was "Anything else you need to know?"

"What do you do for a living?"

_Exactly what it says on my card on the mailbox_, Brittany wanted to say, but she repressed it. Being around Santana meant repressing a lot. She didn't like it. "I paint and tell stories. Quinn said you wrote a book once. What was it called?"

"_The Nineteenth-Century Sporting Event as Social History."_

"Catchy title. Who's going to play you in the movie?"

Santana looked at her with a stoic face. "Maybe I should just tell everyone in Prescott that you're mute."

Brittany grinned back. "Aw don't worry baby. I'll be good."

"Remember that. So what do you paint?"

"Primitives."

"Primitives?"

Brittany thought about explaining it to her, telling her about the women she painted in the smallest, simplest shapes possible, surrounding them with the tiny details of their lives so that the simplicity became complexity, the way that the simplicity of their lives became complex when you looked at their hopes and fears and dreams and stories. Then she looked at Santana sitting across from her, logical and reasonable, and decided to forget it. This was obviously a woman not interested in visual arts or in simple women's lives. "It's hard to explain, but I do them very well."

Santana nodded, clearly uninterested. "What else? How do you really earn a living?"

"I told you. Painting. Storytelling. I sell jewelry to an upscale craft store. I used to have some savings from when I was a teacher, but that's all gone now."

Santana looked nonplused. "How old are you?"

"I'll be thirty in September."

"You're thirty and you have no career and no steady income." Santana shook her head. "Who feeds you? The cats?"

"I do all right." Reality was not the story Brittany wanted to talk about. "This is your fantasy," she told Santana. "I'm just along for the ride until midnight, when I turn into a pumpkin. Why don't you just tell me your story, and I'll memorize it, and we'll be done."

"Great," Santana said, and began to talk. It was so much worse than Brittany had imagined, full of plans for a woman in a designer apron and smiling, apple-cheeked children dressed in Baby Gap and a stuffy career in a stuffy town. The latina had no imagination at all, and Brittany was stuck in her story. Thank God it was only for twenty-four hours. If anyone had heard her, her storytelling career would have been over forever.

Santana finished the story, feeling much better about the whole situation. Brittany was obviously a bright woman, and Santana's story sounded pretty good as she told it. For the first time, she thought the whole thing might actually work.

"That is without a doubt the worst story I've ever heard," Brittany said.

Ok maybe not. Santana bit back a reply. She needed the blonde. She was going to have to put up with her for only one night. "Well, pretend you love it while we're in Prescott."

"No problem." Brittany tilted her head a little, dropped her chin, and opened her eyes wide. "I'm just thrilled to be here in Prescott, the cutest little town in Ohio and the perfect place to raise my two point four children, who'll all be going to Harvard on full academic scholarships. I can't tell you how excited I am."

She leaned forward a little and looked up at the latina under her lashes. Santana looked straight down the graceful line of her throat and into the gaping neckline of her ridiculous yellow dress and saw full, perky curves. Santana jerked her startled eyes up to meet Brittany's. She had a body. Santana had missed that in all the clothes and the pouting, but she wasn't pouting now. She was smiling at the latina dreamily, the killer smile that had laid Schuester low, her lips parted and soft. A wave of lust rolled over Santana. _She's nuts and she's messy and she irritates the hell out of you, _she told herself, but all she could see were those curves and that wide, toothy smile.

"I can't wait," she repeated, and Santana said, "Stop that," and she laughed.

Santana stood up just to get away from her. "Come on, Cinderella. I have to get back to school."

When they were outside, Brittany rolled her eyes at the car again, but she behaved herself until they were halfway home, which gave Santana some time to recover. Then she put her hand on the latina's arm and pointed. "Can we stop up there for a minute? Just a minute?"

Santana looked ahead to where she was pointing, at a craft boutique. It didn't seem like much to ask, and it would get the blonde out of the car for a few minutes while she got her mind back where it belonged. "Sure." Santana checked the rearview mirror and pulled over. "Don't take too long. I have to teach in forty-five minutes."

Brittany nodded, took a deep breath, got out of the car, and walked into the store.

Santana watched her through the big plate glass window and relaxed. When her mouth wasn't open and irritating her, and her dress wasn't gaping and inflaming her, Brittany Pierce was cute. Santana watched her trek up to the counter, her ridiculous long skirt making her look like a kid playing dress-up. She asked for something, and the guy behind the counter leaned on the register, bored, and shook his head. Brittany said something else, and he shook his head again. Santana glanced at her watch and looked back at the guy. He was sneering. What was it with her? First Artie, now this guy. _This woman has an absolute attraction for jerks, _she thought, and got out of the car.

"Look, Dustin." Brittany faced the store owner and tried to be tough. And mature. Mature was important. "You sold the last of my jewelry two weeks ago."

"I told you." Dustin pressed his lips together with exaggerated patience. "Checks at the end of the month."

"But you didn't give me a check at the end of last month," Brittany pointed out. "And some of my pieces were sold by then."

"Checks at the end of the month." Dustin looked up and beamed, and Brittany turned to see who had come in.

It was Santana, looking prosperous and intimidating in her expensive pant suit. Santana, looking sort of like ninja. Tiny but dangerous and calm.

Only protective, which was nice. A calm, dangerous, protective ninja.

Dustin's voice oiled out from behind the register. "Can I help you, Madam?"

The heck with being mature. She'd never been any good at being mature anyway. "Hah you're in trouble now, Dustin," she told him, hooking her thumb over her shoulder at Santana. "This is my sister from New Jersey."

Santana and Dustin looked at her, stunned. Brittany nodded solemnly at Dustin. "She doesn't like me much, but she believes fair is fair, and she's against people who cheat innocent, hardworking people. I told her you wouldn't pay me even though you'd sold my stuff. I'm sorry, Dustin, but a woman's got to do what a woman's got to do."

"Brittany." Santana's voice was cold with warning.

"Don't break his fingers, Sanny," Brittany pleaded, not taking her eyes off Dustin. "He's not a bad guy. He'll give me the money."

"Who are you trying to kid blondie?" Dustin sneered at her again.

"Wait a minute."

Brittany shot a glance at Santana. She'd turned her icy stare to Dustin. Oh, good.

"There's no need to insult her," Santana told him. "If you owe her the money, pay her, but whatever you do, treat her like a lady."

Brittany felt warm all over. She'd never had anyone be protective over her before. It was great. Dustin transferred his sneer to Santana. "Hey, she knows how this works."

"If you owe her the money—" Santana began again.

"I don't know who you really are, lady," Dustin interrupted, "but…"

Lady? Brittany watched Santana's face darken. Thank you, Dustin, for being a consistent jerk, she thought. An equal opportunity jerk. A jerk for all seasons.

"Give her the money, Dustin," Santana said.

Brittany stole another glance at Santana. She looked mad. Furious actually and though the latina was tiny she looked really scary. And it was all for her. Oh, good. Oh, really good.

"What?" Dustin stepped back.

"I said, give her the money." Santana put both hands on the counter and glared at him. "Pretend it's the end of the month and give her what you owe her."

Brittany looked at Dustin, expecting him to sneer again, but he didn't. He was looking at Santana with healthy respect. And Santana wasn't looking much like a college professor, not with those eyes. She was looked like she was just minutes away from killing Dustin. Brittany heard the register chime, and Dustin shoved a handful of bills at her.

She counted it. "This is only seventy. You owe me a hundred and twenty, Dustin."

"You're wasting our time, Dustin," Santana said.

Dustin shoved some more bills at Brittany. Brittany counted some more. "This is too much." She put some of the bills back on the counter.

"Now we're even."

"Great," Dustin said, never taking his eyes off Santana.

"Well, I think so," Brittany said.

Out in the car, Brittany looked at Santana proudly. "Aw my great big sister from Jersey."

Santana closed her eyes and wondered if there was insanity in her family. First "Yes, I have a fiancé" and now "Yes, I'm her sister from New Jersey." At least this time she hadn't actually said anything. This one wasn't her fault. She turned and glared at Brittany. "Don't ever do that again."

Brittany bounced a little on the seat as she looked at the bills fanned out in her hand. "But that was terrific."

The latina pulled out into traffic and then looked at her, bouncing with happiness, and she was torn between killing her and jumping her, which only increased her annoyance. "Not ever again."

Brittany beamed over at her. "You were great."

Santana glared at her harder. "I mean it. Not ever again."

"All right." Brittany clutched her money and smiled at him, content. "Not ever again. My sister from Jersey is now dead."

Santana moved into the fast lane and picked up speed. What the hell did she think she was doing in there? What the hell did _she _think _she_ was doing in there? Santana shook her head. The woman was a menace. Still, she didn't deserve the way that jerk had treated her. Whatever else Brittany Pierce did, she was sure she didn't ask for anything she didn't deserve. And Dustin had been kicking her around just because he could. Santana hated bullies, having run across quite a few of them in her youth, people who thought because you were poor it was all right to push you around. It wasn't, and telling Dustin that it wasn't had felt great. Making Dustin's sneer disappear like dirty snow in the rain hadn't been the intelligent, mature, responsible thing to do, but it had been satisfying. And fun—

No, it hadn't. She stopped for a red light and glared at Brittany again. "Don't ever do that again."

She rolled her eyes, exasperated. "All right." Santana made a sound between a groan and a snarl and stepped on the gas as the light turned green.

"You know," Brittany said a few minutes later as she pulled into the driveway at their house, "I don't think you appreciate me."

"You're an acquired taste." Santana got out and held the car door open for her. "And unfortunately, we're not going to be together long enough for me to acquire that taste."

"That's not unfortunate." Brittany took her hand as she levered her out of the low-slung car seat.

"Just because .you acquired a taste for me doesn't mean I'd let you indulge it. You've just saved yourself a lot of frustration."

Santana looked down at her, fed up. "Trust me. If I acquired a taste, you'd let me indulge. I'm irresistible." She met the bright blue eyes, ready for battle, and Brittany smiled at her, that bone-melting smile. Combined with the surge of adrenaline she'd gotten from rescuing her from Dustin and the surge of lust she got every time she looked down her dress, her smile wiped all thought temporarily from the latina's mind and breathing was suddenly difficult.

"Don't do that Brittany," Santana said.

"Don't underestimate me," Brittany said.

"That would be a mistake," Santana agreed, and got in the car without looking at her again.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N

Sorry for the delay in updating. hope you guys enjoy it. thanks for all the reviews.

* * *

When she picked Brittany up for their drive to the airport, Santana was relieved to see that Brittany was a complete different woman then who she was the previous day. Brittany answered the door dressed in a plain yellow sundress and for once she wasn't wearing her ridiculous hat. the drive to the airport was relatively quiet with Santana stealing glances of the unusually quiet blonde next to her. When they finally boarded the plane Santana was completely curious as to what was wrong with the usually bubbly and talkative blonde. Brittany was siiting next to her with her ankles crossed and her chin down staring down at her hands. When Santana asked her what was wrong, the blonde meekly replied nothing and kept playing with her hands.

When it was time for the takeoff Brittany took the latina's smaller hands in her own. it sent a jolt of electricity through out her body. The latina blushed at the feeling and thought it was a nice gesture till she noticed that the blonde's hands were like ice and her knuckles were white. Brittany held Santana's hand so tightly in hers she was almost cutting off the circulation to her fingers.

"Brittany are you scared?" the latina asked her softly, gently caressing the blonde's hand with her thumb.

Brittany's voice was barely above a she sounded as she was about to cry.

"I hate flying."

"Aw Britt,why didn't you say so before?" She gently squeezed the blonde's fingers.

"One thousand dollars." Brittany replied without noticing the slight hurt expression on the latina's face.

"Well flying is statistically safer than driving, so you can relax." Santana pried her fingers loose.

"So concentrate on the money Brittany. Your rent is paid, by the way. I sent it directly to Schue so he wouldn't evict you while we were gone."

Brittany clenched her hands into tight fists in her lap. "I know you paid it. He called."

Santana winced. "I'm sorry, I should have thought of that. I suppose he thinks I'm keeping you. Did he threaten to evict you for immoral behavior?"

Brittany shook her head a little. "No. I'm not sure, but I think he offered to take over for you if things didn't work out between us."

"What?" the latina could feel the rage coursing through her veins and could barely keep it out of her voice.

"I think he propositioned me. I'm not sure. He hems and haws a lot."

"That fucking creep." Santana took Brittany's hand in hers again and rested both their hands on her lap.

"Do you want me to break his fingers?"

Brittany rolled her eyes trying to ignore the warmth she felt inside due to the latina's protective nature and the way the latina's soft hand felt against hers. "San, he knows you're not my sister from New Jersey."

"Well I'll break his fingers anyway, the old perv." Santana was fuming. Poor Brittany. She was such a nice girl. Then she stopped. Their story was working. Brittany wasn't some innocent kid; she was a hippie from hell. But the blonde had even Santana thinking she was a sweet little thing. The latina looked at her. She did look sort of innocent and childlike, sitting there with one hand curled in her lap, the other crushing her again whenever they hit an air pocket.

"Did he upset you B?"

"Who? Schue?" Brittany shook her head and loosened her grip. "Oh, 's just that I really don't like flying." After a couple of minutes during which no air pockets attacked the plane, she looked at her companion.

"So how about you? Are you nervous about the speech?"

"No. I'm fine." Santana thought about the speech she has to give and the party they have to attend and fidgeted in her seat..

"Well, then, what are you nervous about?"

"What?"

She looked at the blonde, annoyed, but when she met the piercing blue eyes staring back at her calmly, she realized she wasn't breathing once again. She shook her head and drew a deep breath through her nostrils and Brittany scrunched her nose in an adorable way and said,

"I hate it when you do that. I mean if you don't want to talk to me, then don't, but don't flare your nostrils at me like a bull—"

"What? I'm not flaring my nostrils at you—"

"—because that's just rude."

"—I'm breathing."

Brittany didn't look convinced, so the latina continued explaining. "When I get tense, I hold my breath. It's a bad habit, so I concentrate on breathing deliberately through my nose to make sure that I don't pass out."

Brittany blinked at her. "You're kidding right? You forget to breathe?"

Santana turned away to look out the window. "It's a very common reaction to stress."

"I didn't think you even had stress," Brittany said. "It doesn't seem in character."

"It isn't," Santana said shortly. "That's why I breathe. Can we talk about something else?"

"Sure." Brittany cocked her head at her. "So if you're not worried about the speech, why are you stressed?"

"Look Britt," Santana began, planning to tell the blonde to mind her own business, but then she realized she was right. Santana was wound so tight, she was going to be breathing through her hair at any minute.

"I think it's the lying B," she said finally. "I'm not a liar. I've never lied before. And now I not only lied, I dragged you into this whole mess and you're lying too. It's just not right."

"It's not a lie Santana," Brittany said. "It's a story."

Santana looked at her, and sighed. "That's just semantics Britt. It's the same thing."

"No, it's not." Brittany scowled at her, and Santana remembered too late that Brittany told stories for a living; she'd just called her a professional liar.

"B, I didn't mean to insult you—"

"Lies are untrue," Brittany said with all the sureness of Moses laying down the law. "Stories are

unreal, but they're true. They're always true."

Santana shook her head. "I still don't see the difference B. I'm sorry, but—"

"Listen." Brittany leaned forward and gripped her arm to hold her attention. "If you tell a lie, you're deliberately telling an untruth. If you'd told them you'd published six books, or that you'd taught at Yale, or that you'd won the Pulitzer, that would have been a lie. You'd never tell a lie. You're too honest."

"Britt, I told them I was engaged to you. That was a lie."

"No._"_ Brittany shook her head emphatically. "You didn't tell them anything about me. You told them you wanted to get married and settle down in Prescott and raise kids."

"Yeah and that's a lie," Santana said, but she could see where the blonde was going with her explanation.

"I told them what they wanted to hear B."

"Yes, but it was what you wanted to hear too." Brittany let go of her arm and ignored the loss of warmth she felt inside her and settled back in her seat. "Sometimes stories are just previews of coming truths. I bet you really do want that deep down inside your repressed academic soul. I bet your subconscious just wormed its way to the truth and laid it all out when you were too stressed and preoccupied with breathing to keep an eye on it."

"That's very cute B," Santana said. "So now would you like to explain the Alizarin Crimson, the daisy ring fiasco, and my sister from Jersey now?"

Brittany blushed a little and looked down. "Sure. Annie is an original cat, definitely one of a kind, and she's reddish, so telling Schue she was an Alizarin Crimson was true in its own way. And you were treating me like a child bride in the store, not letting me pick out my own ring, so I became one. That one was really your story, not mine. And the sister part…" She looked up again, a little shy. "I think I just wanted somebody to rescue me, you know? Dustin was being such a jerk, and I just wanted somebody to stick up for me, the way a brother would. I get really tired of fighting my own battles. And then you came in, and I knew you'd stick up for me. I just knew you would. And you knew it too. That's how I know it's true, even if it isn't real. You walked right into my story."

They stared into each other's eyes for what felt like an eternity. Santana felt lost in the blonde's beautiful blue eyes and she almost leaned in before she realized what she was doing and pulled back.

"I did not know anything." She tried to not look into the blonde's eyes again and tried to ignore the thumping of her heart in her chest.

"Yes, you did." Brittany leaned her head back on the seat feeling a little dissapointed. "You could have denied everything, or told me to shut up, or dragged me from the store, or walked out. Really San, you could have done almost anything." She turned her head again to meet the latina's eyes. "Instead, you were my brother from New Jersey. You knew it was true too."

"I'm still not buying this," Santana told her, but she was irrationally cheered. Maybe she hadn't lied. Maybe it had been a glimpse of the future. Maybe—

The plane hit another air pocket, and Brittany clutched her hand again tightly. "How much longer to Prescott?"

"About fifteen minutes to the Dayton airport. About another forty-five to Prescott by car."

"Are we renting a car?"

"No, Harper said he'd come pick us up."

"The dean? You must be a really valuable asset ."

"Not me. I told him all about you. He can't wait. He calls you 'Little Brittany.' "

Brittany closed her eyes. "Oh, no."

* * *

"So this is Little Brittany!" Harper beamed at her. "Even sweeter than I'd pictured her!"

He looked like an anti-Santa Claus, leering at the blonde instead of beaming, and Brittany instantly hated him. So this is who she had to impress. Just her luck. But she knew she had no choice so she ducked her head trying to look bashful and smiled at the man looking at him through her eyelashes. Harper almost fell over backward from the wattage.

"Well well Santana, you are one lucky dog." Harper put his arm around Brittany, who stifled a shudder.

Santana smirked at the man. "Thank you, sir."

Harper's hand slid down over her hip. Santana could feel the rage in her rising again but she knew she can't break Harper's hand dor touching the blonde, so she took Brittany's hand and pulled her closer to could feel the butterflies rising again but she was furious at the way the older man was leering at her. She wanted to kill them both. This is what happens when you let other people tell the story, she told herself. Don't do that again.

Harper led them out to the parking lot in no time. He waved them toward a big maroon Cadillac, and a chubby blonde waved back frantically. "This is my little woman," he said as she disentangled herself from the front seat and got out of the car.

"Julie, honey, this is Santana and Brittany."

Julie leaped on Santana. "Alan didn't tell me how beautiful you were," she said, and hugged the latina tightly, and Brittany smirked thinking, _Good, let her get groped for a change_. Then Julie turned on Brittany and her bright, vague smile widened.

"And you must be Brittany! I agree, you're a sweetheart!" She threw her arms around Brittany, engulfing her in a cloud of Chanel No. 5 and gin. It smelled a lot like a drink Brittany had thrown up once at a college mixer.

Brittany fought her way free from the overly excited woman. "Well, I'm just so delighted to meet you too, Julie. You're a sweetheart. We'll have to sit down later and have a little girls' talk." Brittany said cheerly with her trademark mega watt smile firmly in place.

Santana closed her eyes and shook her head. _Pouring it on too thick, Britt._

"Oooh that sounds great Brittany. We will definitely do that." Julie beamed and hugged Brittany tightly again.

"Ok well, let's go." Harper wasn't having any fun and his leer was getting tired.

"Here allow me." Santana held the front passenger door open for Julie and she was visibly thrilled. Santana smiled at the woman and then she held the backdoor open and smiled sweetly at the blonde. "here you go baby."

Brittany resisted the urge to kick her on the ankle. She smiled gratefully at the latina.

"You're such a darling," she said instead, and batted her eyes at the shorter girl "I just love you Baby."

"Don't push it," Santana said whispered as she closed the door.

"Isn't she just the sweetest?" Julie said to Harper when they were all in the car.

"Yes, she is." Harper leered over the seat at Brittany. "You're a lucky dog, Santana."

By now Santana's smirk was gone and her fake smile was firmly pasted on. "I know sir."

This is going to be the car ride from hell, Brittany thought, and she was right. By the time Harper had driven them to Prescott, helped them drop their things off at the motel, and then driven them out to the college, they'd heard what a lucky dog Santana was a dozen times, and Santana had said, "Yes, sir," another dozen, and Julie had never stopped babbling. Brittany was ready to scream, but she told herself that if she could keep smiling long enough to get into the lecture room, the Harpers would have to shut up so Santana could give her speech. It was the only time in her life that she'd ever looked forward to a speech.

As it turned out, she wasn't destined to hear it.

"You two go ahead," Julie said when they were standing beside the car. "I'm going to give Brittany a tour." She waved them away with her hand."Go on. Just go on."

Harper frowned at her. "The faculty should meet Brittany. Professor Grey should meet her. and I—"

"Well they can all meet her at the party tonight. there's no point her getting bored listening your speech." Julie fished her car keys out of her purse and gently pushed Brittany toward the front seat. "You guys go on."

"I'm sure Brittany would like to hear Santana's speech. She won't get bored with that." Harper said, and the annoyance in his voice was plain.

Julie faltered for a second. "Do you wanna go hear Santana's speech?" she asked, turning to Brittany. Brittany quickly wondered what she wanted to do. Her choices were Harper's leering while listening to some boring speeches about history or a tour around a small town which seemed quite lovely. She looked at Julie and felt instanly sad for the look of uncertainty in Julie's eyes; whatever else Julie was, she was vulnerable.

"Oh, it's ok. I've heard that speech a thousand times," she told Harper sweetly taking Santana's hand in hers and giving her a loving gaze. "San rehearses everything with me."

Julie awwed at them and looked at the couple with a huge smile in her face in admiring wonder. "Isn't that just adorable? Aren't the two of you just darling?"

"I think so." Brittany leaned down and kissed Santana on the cheek sweetly. "Knock them dead, baby."

"Thank you." Santana wrapped her arms around the blonde tightly and pulled her into a hug and whispered in her ear, "Behave, brat."

She smiled at the latina sweetly and got in the front seat, rewarded not only by her look of apprehention but also by Harper's scowl. Good, two with one blow. It was starting to be her story after all. She turned and smiled as Julie slid into the driver's seat. "This was a very good idea Julie," she told her. "You're so thoughtful. Thank you."

Julie patted her knee and then put the key in the ignition. "Not at all Brittany, I'm just selfish. I just wanted to get to know you all by myself."

Brittany smiled at her in return and turned her attention towards Prescott.

The university had made the little town an odd mixture of cosmopolitan and provincial, with interesting combinations like a gourmet grocery next to an old-fashioned hardware store and a diner straight from the fifties. The one theater had a sagging marquee and an improbably chartreuse and hot pink facade, but it was showing the latest Spiderman movie, and the coming attractions posters promised a tarentino revival, and an old Walter Matthau and Elaine May movie called A New Leaf.

"I love that movie!" Brittany told Julie. "Have you ever seen it? He marries her for money even though she's hopelessly disorganized and then he falls for her anyway. It's really sweet."

"I wish you were going to be when it comes on," Julie said with real regret. "We could go together, just like a mother and daughter. Wouldn't that be fun?"

"Yes," Brittany said, a little taken aback to find herself in a story Julie had obviously started without her.

"But you probably won't get here before fall since Santana still has to teach at her old job." Julie sighed, and then brightened. "But there'll be other movies we can go to when you get here. Lots of them."

"If Santana gets the job," Brittany reminded her, but Julie just patted her knee gently. Brittany smiled at her in response and looked out her mindow at the town again and noticed a. art gallery.

"Tell me about that," she said, pointing to the wood facade that said gallery in gold lettering, and Julie slowed down and said, "Oh, that's Bill's gallery. He started it over thirty years ago and it's very successful now. He has shows four times a year and all these big art people from New York come out to see his latest discoveries."

All the breath left Brittany's body in one long whoosh. "Discoveries?"

Julie nodded. "He likes showcasing new artists, so two of his shows, the ones in January and July, are always about new people. He's been written up in all the big art magazines. He showed me the articles. They even had color pictures."

This is not your story, Brittany warned herself, but it was too late. It had been too late since she'd seen the gallery. The universe was doing everything but dropping a big sign in front of her that said This is it, this is your next move. Only it wasn't. This is really cruel, she thought, but she couldn't think of anyone outside of fate and the cosmos to blame.

Julie picked up speed once they were past the gallery. "We can go sometime if you like art. I don't understand most of it, but I like Bill, and he doesn't make me feel dumb if I don't understand it."

"Well, of course not," Brittany said, momentarily jerked out of her dream. "Why would he?"

"Some people do," Julie said vaguely, and Brittany thought of overbearing Harper and wondered what living with that kind of disapproving, domineering man would do to a woman. Probably drive her to drink. She sighed to herself and put her hand over Julie's. "Then they're jerks and you shouldn't pay attention to them."

"Oh." Julie blushed with pleasure. "Well, I don't know much, you know. I never went to college. I married just an year after i left high school. I'm just a housewife."

Brittany scowled. "Don't say that Julie. You are not just a wife. You are so much more than that"

Julie patted Brittany's hand. "Well, that's just sweet of you, sugar, but that's pretty much what I am." She waved her hand at the window and said, "Now, this is a nice neighborhood to start out in," and Brittany realized they'd left the downtown and turned into a side street of old houses in various stages of repair. One had a sign in front that said PRESCOTT VETERINARY.

"The houses here are reasonable, and it's walking distance of the campus," Julie told her. And the vet's, Brittany thought. Nice and close for her cats. Except she wasn't going to be living they turned down Tacoma Street, and she saw the house. It was a slightly run down Victorian cottage with diamond panes in the front window and a big front porch with most of the boards missing, and a picket fence that needed to be painted badly, and—best of all—a For Sale sign in front of it. "Oh," she said, and Julie stopped the car.

"That one?" Julie looked doubtful. "Honey, it's in awful shape."

"I could fix it," Brittany said. "If the foundation's good, and it's not loaded with termites, I can fix everything else. I'm an artist. I can fix anything."

Julie perked up. "You're an artist? Well, isn't that interesting? Santana didn't tell us that. Wait until I tell Alan."

"I'd paint it yellow," Brittany went on, half to distract Julie and half because she was starting to love this story. "With blue and white trim. And I'd put the gingerbread back up. See where there's still some left at the side? I could use that as a pattern and cut more. It would be so beautiful."

Julie looked back at the house wearily, squinting to see it through Brittany's eyes.

"But wouldn't you like something new?"

"No," Brittany said with passion. "People throw away too many things because they always want new. But if you look at old things, they have history and personality and spirit. The things that I have that I love best are the old things that I've rescued. They have stories of their own, and then I fix them up and they're part of my story too." She looked back at the house lovingly, seeing the proportions under the peeling grayish paint, and the light that would certainly flood through the long, dingy windows once she'd cleaned them. LT could stretch out and sleep on the hardwood floors Brittany knew were inside, and Annie could climb the porch rail and screech at people and birds. And Julia could come to visit…

"I could make that house a wonderful part of my story."

"I'd really like to see that," Julie said softly, still looking at the house. She sounded wistful, and then she turned to look at Brittany.

"I'd like to watch you fix that house. Would that be all right?"

Brittany felt heart heart tug at the loneliness in Julie's voice. "Sure," she said, hating herself for lying.

"Of course, we don't know if Santana will get the job—"

Julie turned back to the house. "Don't worry Brittany. She'll get the job." Her voice sounded strong with determination, and Brittany had a feeling that even if Santana had just given the worst speech of herife, Julie would make sure that Harper hired her. if only the whole thing hadn't been a lie—no, a story—she'd have felt better.

Only if it had been true. It would've been amazing. Living in this cute little town, in this nice house that she can fix up herself with a vet just a block away and a great movie theater nearby and a gallery that might display her work, and a great wife like Santana to take care of her-

That last thought shook her out of her dream and brought her back to earth. A wife like Santana would take care of her and make her happy but she'd also want her to be something she's not and then she would probably feel guilty if she slipped. It was a great story but it was also a fairy tale that could never be a reality.

"Yellow," Julie said, still staring at the house. "I can just picture it. With lilacs out in front."

"Lilacs would be beautiful," Brittany said, seeing the purple contrasting with the yellow house and blending with the blue trim, and for a moment they both shared the picture and the story. "Actually Lilacs would be perfect Julie."

"It will be perfect," Julie corrected her, and Brittany smiled at her weakly and closed her eyes in regret.

* * *

Santana's presentation went the way all her presentations did: smoothly and professionaly. She could see the admiring approval in her audience eyes, especially in the eyes of the blonde that was wearing a sinfully short skirt and was smiling seductively at her from the front row.

Santana returned the smile and then realized that she couldn't flirt with the blonde. not now. not when she's suppose to be engaged to Brittany. But in the fall, if she got the job and when she's not engaged then she can get to know the blonde. she made a mental note to herself to get to know the blonde in the fall trying not to feel guilty since there was no reason for her to feel guilty anyway. But her heart wrenched uncomfortably at the thought.

The Q and A section after the presentation was exhausting but Santana realized that most people weren't opposing or arguing her views. They were all very supportiva and were asking her for more information. Even Dr. Grey seemed warmer towards her and told her she had done an excellent job. She lookeed around at the crowd who was looking at her with approval and admiration and for a moment she wished that Brittany was there to see her. She would've given almost anything at that moment just to look up and see the blonde's dazzling smile directed at her, just wid=shing that their story was true, just for the moment.

Harper shook her out of her thoughts when he shook her hand and said, "That was excellent Santana. I think you will fit right in. and your woman is delightful too. Julie thinks she's simply wonderful. You're a lucky dog."

Santana felt exasperated with him. The man had a university to run, for God's sake, and he was obsessing over faculty wives. "Thank you sir. I think she's amazing too."

"You know, she's just going to love living here in Prescott." Harper winked, and Santana looked at him shocked and then quickly replaced it with a look and a smile of appreciation.

_I can't believe Britt did it.I'm in._


	7. Chapter 7

A/N

So hope you guys like this...sorry it took awhile. enjoy. R&R

* * *

Harper dropped Santana at the motel, and Santana shook his hand again in genuine gratitude.

"I appreciate this, sir. More than you can know."

"Well, we appreciate you too, Lopez," Harper said. "And we surely do appreciate Brittany."

"Oh, we all do that," Santana said, her exasperation considerably lessened by landing her dream job. When Harper finally drove away, Santana went to find the blonde who was responsible for making her dreams come true to give her the good news.

Santana knocked on the door and waited for Brittany to answer. Hearing no noise she opened the door and saw Brittany standing near the bed in her underwear. Brittany turned to look at her and smiled not realizing the shocked state the latina was in. Santana opened and closed her mouth like a fish a couple of times and Brittany gave her a look of amusement. Even in her bright yellow bra and shorts which had ducks on them Brittany looked like an angel right out of Santana's wildest dreams. Her long smooth legs seemed never ending and her boobs looked just the right size to leave anyone drooling. The blonde made her lose her train of thought in an instant and made her feel like a teenage boy who has never seen a naked woman.

"How'd the speech go Santana?" Brittany asked the flustered latina unaware of the impact she had on the smaller girl.

Hearing the blonde talk to her Santana snapped out of her haze and answered with an uncharacteristically huge smile on her face. "We did it Britt, I got the job."

"I knew it!" Brittany threw herself at the smaller woman, and Santana caught her, surprised that she cared so much, and then she got distracted by how much warm softness she was pressing against her. "You are going to love it here Santana," Brittany beamed at the latina, and Santana looked at her and lost her train of thought again. Brittany smelled of vanilla and strawberries and she was so soft and smooth that Santana had to close her eyes for a minute to try and gather her thoughts. She inhaled the blonde's delicious scent once more and then slowly opened her eyes. Hearing no response from the other woman, Brittany loosened her grip on the latina and looked into her dark brown eyes with a look of concern.

"Are you okay San?"

Santana stared into the deep blue eyes for what felt like an eternity and then her eyes slid past Brittany's face to the blonde's bra clad breast. Brittany was warm and soft and being in her arms made Santana feel something that she has never felt before. The blonde seemed to be genuinely happy for her and Santana didn't know what to do about it. So she held her breath and closed her eyes.

Brittany stared at the latina and noticed how beautiful the other woman was. She liked the feeling of holding the latina in her arms. She kept staring at the smaller woman and realized that she has been holding her breath for a while.

"Breath San." Brittany told the latina with an amused chuckle.

Santana took a breath and opened her eyes once again and reluctantly stepped back from the embrace.

"Thanks Brittany. I'm fine now."

Brittany stared at her for a moment before sitting down on the edge of the bed. She was still beaming at Santana. She stretched out her long legs which made her short ride up even higher and exposing more of her milky thighs. Santana took a deep breath and turned away from the blonde. Still unaware of the impact she was having on the latina Brittany continued her conversation.

"Julie kept hinting all afternoon, but I couldn't believe it. Are you going to tell me what happened? Your speech must have been great."

"It wasn't just the speech." Santana sat down on the end of the other bed, trying not to look like a perv staring at the long legs in front of her and trying hard to keep her eyes somewhere in the vicinity of Brittany's forehead.

"Actually Harper didn't give a damn about the speech, although Grey did." The memory of the speech came back, and momentarily she forgot all about the goddess in front of her while she reveled in her victory again. "Grey loved the speech, but Harper was hooked the moment you smiled at him. Thank God this college has such a small hiring committee. Make sure you tell him you love Prescott tonight at the party."

"I do." Brittany shifted back into the middle of the bed and stretched her legs out and crossed her ankles. "You should have seen the tour Julie gave me San. Prescott is a beautiful place to live"

Santana couldn't help but look at her legs again. She felt like a creep but she couldn't help it. Brittany had terrific legs. And they went all the way up. _Somebody should do everyone a favor and burn all those damn long skirts she wears. Stop being perv Lopez. You sound like Harper. Stop staring at her legs and think of something else. Her boobs look good too. Damn it Lopez.. look at her face.. Those eyes.. oh fuck you_

"Harper is crazy about you." Santana stated bitterly. It irritated her the way Harper kept staring at Brittany and she wanted to punch him every time he made a comment about the blonde.

Brittany noticed the irritated look on the latina's face and felt warm inside.

_Is she jealous? No stop it why would she be?_

"I think he's just plain crazy, period." Brittany rolled off the bed and Santana tried not to look at her ass as she slid to her feet. She headed to the bathroom, picking up a dress as she went.

"I feel sorry for his poor wife."

"Julie?" Santana was confused. "Why?"

"She's so lonely San." Brittany's voice floated back. "She's just dying to have a surrogate daughter, and if their marriage was any good, she wouldn't need one. She'd have him to talk to."

She came back out, zipping up the dress as she walked. It was the dress Santana had bought her the other day and it fit the blonde perfectly. It was tight in all the right places but still gave the blonde a childlike appearance. And Santana felt confused again, remembering the body under the dress but at the same time she registered that Brittany looked like sweet and innocent like a child.

"I can't get over how you look in that dress. I feel like a child molester."

A look of confusion came over Brittany's face. "Do I look bad?"

"No. Of course not" Santana stared a bit more trying to figure out how to explain to Brittany how she looks. "You just look really innocent but provocative. Like a hot fairy tale. Sort of like Cinderella in heat."

While staring at Brittany, Santana had a momentary vision of jumping her and pushing her on the bed, sliding her hand up Brittany's hip and feeling the blonde writhing underneath her as those long, smooth legs—

"San? Santana?" Santana snapped out of her dream and looked up at the blonde who was smirking knowingly at her.

_Shit Lopez. what the fuck is wrong with you? make sure you stay out of motel rooms with Brittany. Actually just make sure you're never alone with her again._

"Sorry I was just thinking. You look great . I'm gonna go get ready now ok? I'll see you in a bit." She rushed out of the room leaving the blonde with an amused look in her face.

* * *

On their way to the Harper house Santana kept glancing at the woman next to her. She couldn't help herself. She noticed how beautiful Brittany's face looked. She definitely had the face of an angel. And Santana realized that she could stare into Brittany's eyes for as long as she wants and never get tired. It was a feeling that the latina had never experienced before and it was starting to scare the hell out of her.

Brittany saw the Harper house as Tara North: big columns, lots of drapery, flowers, gardens, statuary, everything that spelled opulent living, all in pink and white.

"I do declare," she said to Santana under her breath, and she whispered back, "You better behave, Cinderella."

She really tried.

Harper practically drooled down Brittany's neckline, and said, "You really are a keeper," and she smiled back, even when he patted her ass. She noticed Santana clench her fists at that and gently took the latina's hand in hers and interlaced their fingers.

Professor Grey seemed a little staggered at first and then welcomed her politely. "You're not at all what I expected," he told her, and she smiled at him, turning on the charm as ordered. He blinked once, and then introduced her to his wife, Lacey, who was open and warm in her welcome and got a real smile in exchange. Later Grey moved to one side of the room and laughed quietly into his drink until Lacey nudged him with her elbow, and Brittany thought, we're not fooling either one of them, and liked them even more. A professor with a long, mournful face introduced himself. "I'm Evan York. History. Interesting dress. It probably won't wash well." His smile was brief but genuine, and Brittany liked him a lot too. There was something endearing about anyone that depressed.

But there was nothing endearing about the last professor who introduced herself and Brittany instantly hated her. it was a small blonde who looked pretty enough to be a movie star. "I'm Caroline Honeycutt, from the history department. I love your dress. Really."

She smiled up at Brittany but managed to make it seem like she was smiling down.

"And you must be so proud of Santana. Her paper was brilliant. What do you think of her theory of the impact of the ring on social barriers?"

Brittany stared at the woman for a while before answering.

"I'm all for it," Brittany said, and Caroline's smile widened.

"Ah, you're not a historian," Caroline said. "Forgive me."

"You bet," Brittany said, but she thought,_ I don't like you_. And she liked Caroline even less when she saw the tiny blonde walk over to where Santana was and began to smile up to her flirtatiously. Really up at her, because she was little. And pretty. Like Quinn. And probably like all of Santana's other women. Not that it mattered. And Santana smiled back, Sexy, tanned and gorgeous, looking down at tiny little Caroline.

Brittany gritted her teeth. She was feeling extremely jealous watching the exchange although there was no reason for her to be jealous. This was all just a story, and it wasn't even her story. No matter how much she loved Prescott and liked the people she met and wanted to save Julie, it wasn't true. She and Santana were only pretending to be engaged.

_But she's not pretending very well is she? Flirting with that stupid tiny woman. Jerk_

Brittany decided to do the adult thing and ignore them while she concentrated on what Santana was paying her a thousand dollars to do. So she talked with Harper, making sure to keep herself out of range of his hands. She talked with Evan, radiating cheer to counteract his gloom. She talked with Lacey, sharing stories about Liz and Annie when she found out that Lacey loved animals too. She talked with Harper again, because when she turned around he was there. She talked with Grey, sharing his admiration for Santana. She talked with someone from the English department who'd come for the drinks, sharing his annoyance that the mushroom canapés were gone. She talked with Harper, because when she turned around he was there again. Harper was growing from an annoyance to a real problem. She looked around for Santana to rescue her, but the latina was gone, and Brittany felt her temper rise.

_If she's still flirting with that skinny midget Caroline_, _I'm going to break her fingers._

* * *

Santana was seriously confused. On the one hand, she had the Prescott job for sure; Harper had taken her aside as soon as they arrived at the party and together with Grey had made her the formal offer which Santana had accepted so promptly that they had all beamed.

Then things began to get weird. It couldn't be the story, she told herself. After all, it was her story. No, it was more like the story slipping into reality. There was Caroline Honeycutt, for example, logical, intelligent, and obviously more than interested in her, exactly her kind of woman. And then there was Brittany, intuitive and unpredictable, scowling and glaring at her and charming everybody else, exactly not her kind of woman. So it was disconcerting that her eyes kept going back to Brittany instead of staying on Caroline. It was seeing her in her underwear, she told herself. She'd stick close to Caroline, and she'd remember that she liked smart, elegant women dressed in designer suits and black lingerie, not ditzy, tall women dressed in secondhand clothes and underwear with ducks, for God's sake, and then she wouldn't fall into the story and think about taking Brittany back to the motel and consummating her new job with her wife-to-be-who-wasn't.

_Never tell anymore stories Lopez_, She told herself, and when Caroline joined him, she was determine to keep all his attention on the tiny blonde and reality and pushed all thoughts of Brittany with her long legs and her bright blue eyes to the back of her mind.

* * *

By midnight Brittany felt that if she flashed her smile one more time, her eyeballs would roll out and her cheeks would split. And it didn't help that every time she turned around, Santana was with Caroline.

"Santana." She walked up beside her, smiling.

Santana was talking with Caroline again and she ignored her.

"San?" She tugged on her sleeve, kissed the latina on her cheek still smiling. Santana blushed instantly.

Caroline looked up at her and smiled patronizingly. "You are just too adorable for words."

Brittany narrowed her eyes. "Don't be bitchy, darling, it ages you."

Santana took her arm and steered her away from a startled Caroline.

"What the hell are you doing Britt?" she whispered.

Brittany put her hands on her hips and glared at the latina "I'm going back to the motel _San_. This is my idea of hell, but I have been good for five excruciating hours, and now it's time for me to be set free. Take me home, _baby_, or I'll turn into a pumpkin right here before their very eyes. And the first one I show my real self to will be that patronizing anorexic dwarf with the bad bleach job."

"Ok ok god just hold on." Santana patted her shoulder a little frantically. "I will get you out, I swear, but it will take some time. We'll have to say good-bye to everyone. Can you stand it another fifteen minutes?"

"Just about."

It took them half an hour before they'd said all their good-byes and the Harpers would let them go. Brittany figured that unless Santana did something incredibly stupid, she was in. Then she saw her with Caroline again, holding her hand, looking into her eyes, saying good-bye. Laying the groundwork for laying Caroline next year. Well, to hell with them both. They deserved each other.

And then she turned and saw the expression on Julie's face as Julie watched them.

_Julie must have watched her husband with a lot of women,_ Brittany thought. _And Julie isn't attached to Santana, she's attached to me. The daughter she never had. __Fuck it Santana, you ass_.

Brittany moved up beside Julie and sighed. "It's so sad."

Julie put her arm around Brittany and glared in Santana's direction. "Don't worry darling!"

Brittany faked a look of surprise. "Oh, no. San's not interested in Caroline that way. It's just that she looks like San's little sister. Her little sister… Gertrude."

Julie stopped, taken aback. "Oh?"

"You see…" Brittany leaned closer as her mind raced ahead. "San adored her, and she died very young."

"Oh, no." Julie was horrified.

Brittany got a faraway look in her eye. "They loved each other very much. San called her little cupcake."

Julie nodded.

Brittany tried to recapture the thread of her story. "And then one day—" She paused.

_How am I gonna kill off this nauseating little creep? Disease? Murder? Act of God?_ _How would I like Caroline to go?_ Brittany's face lit up.

"She was hit by a truck."

"Oh, my heavens." Julie's hand went to her mouth.

It was a good thing Julie was so full of gin. This was not one of Brittany's best efforts. "And so, Santana is just naturally drawn to be kind to small blondes because they remind her of her little cupcake. Little Gertrude."

"Oh." Julie clutched at her, touched.

Santana finally let go of Little Gertrude's hand and turned to find them watching her. Julie sniffled. Brittany wiggled her fingers at the latina. Santana walked over to them with a smile on her face and took Brittany's hand and interlaced their fingers.

"Well, it's midnight, so I better get Cinderella home."

Julie clutched her arm. "You poor, poor darling."

Santana looked at the gin glass in Julie's other hand and nodded. "Absolutely. We'll see you tomorrow."

She smiled kindly at Julie and wrapped her arm around Brittany and led her out the door.

"What the hell was that all about B?" Santana asked Brittany as they went out to the car. Brittany beamed at her. "I'll tell you later San, but it's nothing to worry about." Santana looked at her warily, and she added with a mischievous smile, "Unless you were hoping to sleep with Caroline someday. That would be bad."

"Brittany—" Santana said, but then Harper joined them and cut her off.

Brittany gave her a sly wink and got into the car and smiled all the way back to the motel.

* * *

Half an hour later Brittany came out of the motel bathroom wearing an oversize white T-shirt and saw Santana sitting on the opposite bed with her shirt off only wearing a bra.

_Blady hell_, she thought, and then she stopped thinking in words and went to pictures. Moving pictures.

She was almost drooling staring at the latina's bra clad chest and didn't notice the looks Santana was giving her. After all her attention was focused a little below the latina's face.

Santana scowled at her across her bed. "Brittany why can't I sleep with Caroline someday?"

_So much for fantasy; she was still obsessing on the stupid midget_.

"Because San, she reminds you of your poor dear sister Gertrude." Brittany pulled back the covers and climbed into her bed. "Julie would consider it incest."

Santana tensed, wariness noticeable in every beautiful muscle of her face.

"I don't have a sister named Gertrude."

Brittany nodded, enjoying the latina's torment. If she had to look at her body and suffer, then she should have to look into her mind and do the same. It was only fair.

"I know. She died young. Tragically. She—"

"Brittany!"

Brittany stuck her chin out. "That's why you hold hands with blond midgets instead of paying attention to your lovely fiancée. I had to explain to Julie because she thought you were cheating on me in front of me. The way Harper probably does with her. Understand?"

Santana froze. "Oh."

"You used to call her your little cupcake."

Santana looked confused. "Julie?"

"No, darling Little Gertrude."

Santana started to laugh, and Brittany had to grin with her. "And Julie bought this?" Santana asked her.

Brittany's grin faded as she remembered. "She was drunk. She drinks way too much, but it's because she's so unhappy. She'd stop if she had somebody to talk to."

Santana's grin disappeared too. "Did she tell you that? How much did you talk? What did you tell her? What did you do this afternoon?"

Brittany stuck her bottom lip out. "We just looked at Prescott. But I can tell. She's a good person, she's just so, so lonely."

Santana leaned forward and cupped her cheek. "Don't get caught up in this story. It's not true, remember?"

"I know," Brittany said.

They stared at each other for a moment and then Santana stood up to get ready for bed, and Brittany closed her eyes because the latina was so near.

"I appreciate everything you did today B, don't think I don't," Santana told her softly. "I know that you were the deciding factor. You got me this job, and I appreciate it."

_How much?_ She thought, and considered asking the latina to show it, but only for a second. Then sanity returned, and she said, "My pleasure," and rolled away from Santana before she did anything dumb.

* * *

Once they were on the plane the next day, they both relaxed. "You did it." Brittany leaned her head back and sighed. "I can't believe it. You did it. I'm so proud of you San," she said, and Santana felt warm because she had done well, which had happened before, and because somebody was proud of her for it, which hadn't happened in a long time. Brittany looked at her with so much pride and affection and friendship, and the latina was a little sorry that it was all over. They'd reached The End, and they'd both live happily ever after apart, the only way people as different as they were could live happily ever after. Brittany would go back to dressing like a leaky Magic Marker, and she would go to Prescott.

Prescott.

Santana was really going. Because of Brittany.

"Let me give you something to thank you B." Santana took the blonde's hand in hers and squeezed it gently.

"You can have anything you want."

Brittany looked into her eyes again and Santana felt herself getting lost in those blue orbs. Brittany stared at her for a while before pulling her hand free from Santana's grasp. She removed the ring from her finger and handed it to the latina with a smile on her face. Santana felt a sting in her heart as she closed her hand around the ring.

Brittany stared at her a little longer and then gave her a sad smile.

"Just promise me that I'll never have to see Harper again," Brittany said.

"You've got it," Santana said as the sapphire in the ring cut into her palm. "That I can promise B."


	8. Chapter 8

A/N

So this story is coming towards the 's like about 4 chapters left.. i will try and finish it within next you guys enjoy this chapter.R&R

* * *

Santana spent the rest of the spring finishing up loose ends at the university and getting ready to move. She saw Brittany in the apartment foyer and thought about asking her out for pizza or something else mundane that wouldn't signal "date," but it seemed better to just keep nodding and moving past the blonde so that she wouldn't get caught up in the story again. Brittany was a hard habit to kick, she'd discovered, even after only three days. She was sloppy and annoying and uncontrolled, and she brought warmth and chaos into her life, and she was having a hard time forgetting the blonde and all the feelings that rose up every time she saw her. Especially in the middle of the night when she'd remember the motel room. Sometimes the only thing that got her through those middle-of-the-nights was the memory of how awful Brittany could be. She'd brought Santana more anxiety in the three days she'd spent with her than all the other women she'd ever known put together. But she'd also made her feel things no one has ever made her feel. She missed the gentle touches and the endearing names. She missed the way how Brittany's smile lit up her whole face. She missed how the blonde got so excited and passionate when she told her stories. She had more fun with Brittany in those three days then she did with all the other women combined. and importantly the blonde also brought her Prescott. Santana was very grateful for that and she knew that Brittany was the main reason she got the job. But she knew that the two of them would never work out so maybe it was time to leave that in the past and move on. She sent Brittany flowers to thank her before she left. Then she packed and moved to Ohio.

She bought a small Victorian house Julie suggested, which was about a mile from campus. Santana preferred a more modern looking house than what she bought but the place she got had been rented out to students for more than forty years and it was a little run down and was in need of a lot of repairs. so it was a huge bargain, or at least as much of a bargain as any house could be in a college town. But the structure was solid and the rooms were spacious and airy. There were a few holes in the walls but nothing serious that couldn't be fixed with a bit of speckle and paint.

"I can't thank you enough," she told Julie when she'd shown her through it. "You found me a great deal."

Julie beamed and patted the oak mantel.

"Isn't it darling? And I didn't find it. Brittany did. She will have such fun fixing it up." She leaned forward and whispered as if she was letting Santana in on a huge secret.

"I know you professors. You wouldn't care where you lived, but Brittany needs something sweet and pretty."

"Right," Santana said and felt a pang of guilt and pain in her hurt at the mention of the blonde's name. Although she wasn't ready to admit it, the first thought that crossed her mind when she saw the house was that Brittany would have a lot of fun fixing it. She kept constantly wondering what Brittany would think about the house when she was walking around it. She missed the blonde a lot and wondered if Brittany was missing her as well.

She shook herself out of her thoughts and turned around to notice Julie gazing at the oak woodwork again, obviously picturing Brittany dusting or doing other housewifely things. Santana felt immensely guilty for leading Julie on and letting her believing that she was getting a surrogate daughter. She knew how much the older woman adored Brittany. But Brittany would probably have been a great disappointment to Julie, since Santana was fairly sure she never dusted. And Santana winced when she realized that she'd have to eventually tell Julie that Brittany wasn't coming. She wondered how much it would upset the woman. She'd tell her closer to fall, when school started and she was more distracted, although she wasn't sure how that would work since Julie didn't have anything to do with school. In fact, as far as Santana could see, Julie's problem was that she didn't have anything to do at all.

Santana had a lot of work to do though. She hired a plumber to come in and fix the plumbing, and an electrician to come in and fix the wiring, and painters to paint the outside of the house ("Yellow with blue and white trim," Julie told her, "because that's what Brittany would want," and although she hated bright colours she wanted to make the house look exactly the way Brittany would've wanted it to. She knew that there's a chance that the blonde might not even get to see it but she didn't wanna dwell on that. Santana distracted herself from all the thoughts she had about Brittany by doing fixing everything else that needed to be fixed on her own, drawing on the years she'd spent trying to keep her mother's house from falling apart until there was enough money to move her to a better one. The irony occurred to her as she was sanding down a spackled patch: she'd finally gotten her two brothers through college and they had enough money to move her mom to a new home, but she'd refused to go. So Santana was still going back to Sidney—patching new cracks as they appeared, repainting and refinishing—only now in a giant leap forward, she had two old houses to keep going. That was not part of her plan at all, and it was all because of women: her mother who wouldn't move, Julie who had picked this house, and Brittany, who had inspired it.

But she didn't hate that fact. Simply because Brittany would have loved the house. As she worked patching and painting the walls, she could see Brittany trailing her long skirts across the gleaming living room floor, dropping that awful hat in the high-ceilinged hall, shooting her that face splitting smile from the arched doorway into the kitchen, sitting on the solid oak stairs and explaining the world to Santana through the ornate railing. Once Santana even found herself holding an imaginary argument with Brittany as she painted, trying to convince the blonde that it was practical to paint all the walls white. The really irritating thing about that hadn't so much been that she caught herself doing it as it was that Brittany had been winning. Julie didn't help; she dropped by regularly with notes about curtains and rugs and the best place to buy bread, all beginning "Dear Brittany." And it was all Santana's fault; she'd started it with that first dumb story she'd told about her fiancé. She knew that even she got lost in her own story. Everything Brittany had said about stories came back to her: the stories you told were unreal but not untrue; Brittany wasn't really there, but she was everywhere.

Santana sighed and kept on painting, and when she moved her chrome and leather furniture into the big old rooms, she knew what Brittany would say, and she had a feeling that the blonde was right, so it was a damn good thing she wasn't there to say it. Santana felt a tug in her heart and she dropped herself onto the couch. She closed her eyes and instantly saw Brittany in her mind. She sighed softly.

_What have you done to me B_

* * *

"Santana moved out yesterday," Quinn told Brittany early in June. "I know." Brittany nodded toward a huge vase of gladioli, birds of paradise, and cattails sitting on the wobbly table near her door. "She sent me flowers."

Quinn squinted at the arrangement. "Obviously chosen with you in mind, I don't think. Didn't she get to know you at all in Prescott?"

"No." Brittany tried to keep the miserable tone out of her voice. "I think she didn't want to. I think I made her teeth hurt."

"Oh?" Quinn shot her one of those Hello? glances. "Well, I guess that's ok. She's not exactly your type either, is she?"

"No." The miserable tone was there for sure, and Brittany gave up trying to hide it. "She makes me crazy, if you want to know the truth. I mean, she's just like my father, all orders and rules."

"But…" Quinn prompted.

"But I felt really good with her," Brittany finished. "I felt safe. And she's not exactly like my father. She never made me feel guilty or beholden or—well, okay, she did make me feel clueless, but not on purpose. Even though we were surrounded by all those people and telling that big story, I felt safe." She met Quinn's eyes. "I don't think I've ever felt safe, not since I caught on that my mother's grip on reality wasn't a good one. And I must have been about four, so it's been a while."

Quinn scrunched farther down in Brittany's old flowered armchair, staring into space as she thought. "You're right about Santana, but I think that's what I didn't like about her when I was with her. No challenge, no excitement. As long as Santana is around, nothing goes wrong."

"Yeah." Brittany thought about riding through the night beside Santana in her awful car, wrapped in darkness and safety. "I loved that."

"Just that?"

Well, no. There was her body. Brittany stood up and went to the kitchen to distract herself. "Yeah just that. Do you want some juice?"

"I'd rather have the truth Britt."

Brittany exhaled loudly and turned back to her. "Okay, it was not just that. I was tempted by her body. Really, really tempted. I'm still dreaming about her. But that body is attached to a mind that thinks I'm a nightmare, and I couldn't stand the constant disapproval even if she wanted to take me to Prescott, which she doesn't, since she won't even talk to me in the hall, and now she's gone, so it's not an issue, so do you want juice?" She blinked hard and realized there were tears coming, so she turned and went to the fridge without waiting for Quinn's answer.

It was just as well. Quinn went for the jugular. "Would you have gone to Prescott if she'd asked?"

Brittany pulled the juice from the fridge and shut the door carefully. "I don't know. Maybe." She turned and waved her hand at her apartment. "This isn't working for me. I need to reinvent myself if I'm going to grow as an artist. I can't hold on to the past, and I can't keep doing the same things. But it's so hard here, always scrambling for money and trying to convince myself I'm good even though nobody else thinks so—"

"I think so B."

"—and now even just painting is hard." Brittany slumped against the counter and tried to put into words the realization that had been growing in the back of her mind during the past year. "I'm stuck in the old me, and I don't know how to get out. I just know the old me isn't the real me anymore."

"And Prescott would have made you reinvent yourself." Quinn nodded. "Well, sure, but it would have made you reinvent yourself into a lie."

"Maybe not." Brittany closed her eyes and pictured herself in Prescott in that little Victorian house, something that was pretty easy since she'd been doing it ever since she and Julie had first driven down Tacoma Street. "The college is conservative, but the town isn't. There was an art gallery. And a house, a really, really darling house, not an apartment. Maybe I could have reinvented myself into something real there." The coffeemaker sputtered, and Prescott in the spring vanished back into her apartment: cluttered, stale, and everything her life was that she didn't want it to be.

"But it wouldn't have worked, and it's probably just a cop-out anyway."

"Maybe not," Quinn said. "Santana's a good person. Maybe it would have worked."

"Not in a million years," Brittany said. "Now, do you want juice or not?"

Quinn took the juice and tried to keep the conversation about Santana going, but Brittany had had enough. She stonewalled until Quinn gave up in exasperation and left, which was no improvement since that gave Brittany more time to think about Prescott and Santana, which made her breathe a little faster, which made her angry. Stop it, she told herself. Especially stop thinking about how nice and solid she was with her arms around you and how gorgeous she looks with her shirt off. She's probably sleeping with Little Gertrude by now, the incestuous jerk. That thought was a killer, and Brittany shoved Santana firmly out of her mind, telling herself that the last thing she needed in her life was another person disapproving of her, but as the summer wore on, it got harder and harder to paint, and she began to hate her apartment, feeling as if she were trapped in it with the corpse of her old life. Sometimes then, in the middle of the night, Santana would creep back into her thoughts, and she'd think, she wasn't disapproving when she had her arms around me. And then she'd kick herself and try to forget her again.

* * *

In September, Santana went to Harper's office for an early morning meeting to discuss the curriculum committee she had been assigned to, but the first thing Harper said when Santana was sitting across from him was,

"When's Brittany coming? Julie's driving me crazy, asking every day. What's the hold up?"

Santana took a deep breath and dropped the bomb. "She's not coming, sir. We had some problems over the summer, and we've decided it's best to just go our separate ways." It sounded lame and rehearsed, so Santana tried to look miserable, as if she missed Brittany dreadfully. When she thought about her, it wasn't that hard. Those imaginary conversations were taking their toll.

"What?" Harper leaned across his desk, glowering.

"It was just one of those things, sir." Santana shrugged. "She wasn't ready to get married. I lost her."

Harper thumped the desk. "Well, get her back, Lopez. A woman like that is one in a million."

Harper leaned away and hooked his thumbs in his vest. "You bring her back and marry her here. Julie wants to do the wedding in our backyard." Harper got a faraway smile on his face. It was ugly. "Brittany loved the gazebo, you know."

Santana immediately felt rage building inside her at the look on Harper's face. Julie was obviously not the only one fantasizing about Brittany. But she knew she possibly couldn't punch her new boss for fantasizing about Brittany. She had no right to do that, so she clenched her fists and answered through gritted teeth. "Yes, sir, she did, but I don't think—"

Harper shot her another slashing glare. "You sure don't, Lopez, or you'd never have let her go. Now, you get out of here this afternoon. You want to fly? I'll have Rachel make your reservations. One going out and two coming back." He pressed down on the intercom button.

"Rachel!"

"Uh," Santana began, and Harper glowered at her again and told his secretary to make plane reservations. He kept on glowering through the next ten minutes of Santana's increasingly frantic explanations as to why bringing Brittany back was impractical, implausible, and impossible, until his secretary interrupted them with the ticket information.

"One out and two back, Dayton International at eleven," she said, handing a memo with the ticket numbers to Santana. "Have a nice flight."

Harper glared at her. "Go."

Grey found Santana standing in the hall, trying to figure out what to do next. "You look like someone who needs a drink." Grey took her arm. "Come on."

Santana opened her mouth to argue and then realized that Grey hadn't said three words to her all summer. If he was offering a drink now, there was an agenda involved, so she shut up and followed the little man to his office.

Grey waved her to a chair and took a bottle from his bottom drawer. "How about Scotch."

"Yeah. Sure." Santana sank into the chair. "And a syringe."

"Straight into the vein, is it?" Grey chuckled. "Well, I can't say as I blame you. You've really got your-self in a mess Lopez." He pulled two glasses out of the same drawer and kicked it shut with his shin.

Santana instantly stopped thinking about how miserable she was. "Wait, how'd you know? I just got out of Harper's office."

Grey pursed his lips and looked up at the ceiling. "Let me guess. You told him your engagement has been broken off, and he's now sending you back to get—what's her name—Brenda."

"Brittany."

"Brittany." Grey nodded and poured. "Only you can't, because you were never engaged to her in the first place." He held out one of the glasses to Santana as he sat down in his desk chair.

Santana blinked once at him and took the glass from him.

"How long have you known about Brittany?"

"Since the first interview." Grey drank some Scotch, savouring it. "I asked you if you were married, and you said no, and Harper had a heart attack, and I watched your fiancé born right before my eyes." He looked at Santana over his horn-rimmed glasses. "You were pretty good, actually."

Oh, yeah. So good Grey had nailed her at the beginning. Santana sighed. "Why didn't you tell Harper?"

"Because I wanted to hire you." Grey set his glass down, exasperated. "I wanted a good teacher in the department, someone with research experience. Your publication is sterling and your teaching evaluations are even better. And you're working on a new book, aren't you?"

Santana gave up being surprised. "Yeah. How'd you know?"

Grey shrugged. "Anybody we hired, I was going to have to live with for a long time. I looked into you."

Santana went back to the obvious. "Then you knew I wasn't engaged when you asked me."

"I hadn't heard about a fiancé, but I wasn't asking about one either. I don't give a damn whether you're married or not. That's Harper's question. I just asked you about it because it makes him happy."

"You must have really enjoyed the weekend we spent here." Santana tried to remember how Grey had reacted.

"Almost as much as I enjoyed hearing what your book was about. Nineteenth-century birth control as subversive feminism. Harper's going to have a coronary when he finds out." Grey laughed. "I'm so going to enjoy that."

Santana thought about getting annoyed but decided that she's also gonna enjoy that. But not unless she can get Brittany back. She sighed loudly thinking about her predicament. "Not if I'm not here to write it."

Grey waved that off. "You'll be here. You signed a contract. And Harper will forgive all when you get what's-her-name, Brittany, back here."

Nobody was listening to her. "What's-her-name isn't coming back here."

"You won't make full professor without her." Grey leaned back in his chair. "Harper likes faculty wives. Especially attractive faculty wives. And he has grave suspicions about single people in their thirties."

Santana rolled her eyes.

"I know," Grey said. He stretched out his hand and snagged the bottle again.

"I told you, he's a fool. But he's a powerful fool. Get her back Lopez."

Suppose she did come back… Santana sipped her Scotch and let herself openly consider the idea for the first time, hating how much she liked it and wanted it. There were many good reasons why the whole thing was a bad idea, reasons that mainly featured Brittany's mouth, but the truth was the good outweighed the bad, Santana simply missed the blonde immensely. She wanted to show her Prescott and the house and watch her face and see her smile and—

_Maybe it isn't such a bad idea after all_

Grey surveyed the latina in front of him carefully. He noticed the small smile appearing on the girl's face and chuckled softly. He picked up the phone. "I'll call you a cab Lopez, Go get your girl."

* * *

Brittany carefully painted in the tiny pink dress that made Rosa Parks stand out like a beacon on the crowded bus. She moved the brush back to the china plate she was using as a palette and picked up a deeper rose to paint in the pleats in Rosa's skirt, and then she stopped and sighed. LT twitched an ear at her sigh, and Annie jerked her head around, but nothing else changed. Brittany stared at the painting, one she really believed in, one she really wanted to do, one she really didn't want to do. Part of her genius was her attention to detail, but it was the part of her genius that was starting to make her nuts. She suddenly wanted to paint Rosa large, in big, juicy slashes of paint, but that would have been ridiculous. She couldn't tell detailed stories in big, juicy slashes, and stories were her life. Except she didn't like her life anymore. I need a change, she cried silently, but it was the same old cry and there was no change coining, so she took a deep breath and painted the first pleat.

Then she heard the outer door slam shut, and seconds later somebody pounded on her door. LT and Annie both looked at her. "Maybe this is it." she said to them. "Maybe we're getting a new life." She put down her brush and went to answer the knock.

The person standing in front of her was thinner than she remembered, but they had the same handsome face, the same tapering hips, and the same stereo they'd stolen from her months before. "I don't believe this," she said, and slumped against the doorframe.

"Artie, what are you doing here?"

"Hello, baby." Artie beamed at her and held up the stereo with the two small speakers stacked on top. "I brought you this."


	9. Chapter 9

A/N

Just watched the Britney 2.0 and my heart is hurting for Brittany. A sad Brittany is just heart breaking. I literally cried watching the last scene where she's on her bed staring at the computer. It was so sad. I know it's not Santana's fault totally and the "I love you britt" was kinda sweet but still hating her a little. Can't help it. I'm an unreasonable Hemo fan. And I don't like seeing her sad. Anyway so I thought I'll update my story and try to get some happy Brittana feelings. Anyway I'm done rambling. Hope you guys enjoy. R&R

* * *

"Thank you." Brittany took the stereo stack from him.

"Now, good-bye Artie, Get lost" she said, and tried to shut the door with her hip.

Artie blocked it with his foot. "What that's it? C'mon baby? No, Artie, sweetheart, honey, baby, I missed you? No, God, it's good to see you? No, come on in and take off all your clothes?"

"No. Just get lost" Brittany was still trying to close the door.

"I'm trying to move in a new direction Artie, not backtrack. So kindly just go away." She gave up on the door and went to put the stereo down, and when she turned around, he was in the apartment, looking winsome and apologetic and truly annoying.

"I want to come back, Brittany, I wanna be with you. Please give me another chance babe" he said with all the fake sincerity he was capable of.

_What an ass, and I had a relationship with this loser?_ Brittany mentally kicked herself and then moved on. "I don't want you back, Artie. _My stereo_ is still welcome, of course, but you're not. Go away."

"You're a hard woman, Brittany." Artie grinned at her and kicked the door closed behind him. "That's one of the million things I loved about you." He opened his arms to her. "Come on babe, you don't mean it."

"Sure, I do." Brittany detoured around him and opened the door again. "Just get out. I'm not at all interested."

Artie leaned toward her, obviously ready to deal the ace up his sleeve. "Brittany, the band cut a record. I'm going to be rich." He stood back to enjoy her reaction.

Brittany shook her head. "I can't afford you until you're rich. Get out."

Artie was, as always, a slow learner. And of course there was that hearing problem. "C'mon, just a place to stay for a while, love."

"No. Get out."

"Brittany, baby. Did you forget this?" He reached for her and wrapped his arms around her and kissed her neck while she shrank away.

"Let go." Brittany fell into the hall with him as she tried to squirm out of his grasp. Artie was no rapist, but he was a twit and there was a limit to how much of this she was going to put up with. She kneed him hard on the balls, and as he gasped, she heard the front door open.

"Help!" she called out, hoping Artie would give up since they had an audience. Artie didn't have time. Seconds later he was sprawled across the hall. Brittany straightened her sweater and turned to her rescuer. "Thank you. He wasn't actually—" She gasped softly and her voice faded away when she noticed the person that saved her.

Santana loomed over Brittany, supporting herself with one hand on her doorframe as she tried to bring order and logic into the blonde's life again. Santana reached out her hand and pulled the blonde up and hugged her tightly. The three Scotches she'd had on the plane to get her nerve up had joined the drink that Grey had given her, and it had given her a lot of courage and made it easier to deal with the feelings she had for the blonde. She inhaled Brittany's unique scent before swiftly letting the blonde go and glaring at the man sprawled on the floor.

"Britt never open your door to anyone you don't know."

"She knows me," the creep who'd attacked her said from the floor. "I'm her boyfriend. Who the hell are you?"

Her boyfriend? Santana focused on him. Oh, right. The musician. Adam or Artie or something. Well, he was history.

"I'm her wife." Santana turned and loomed over him too. "Now go away or I'll break your fucking fingers."

"You got married?" Artie stared at Brittany, indignant. "I was only gone eight months."

"But you never wrote to me Artie," Brittany pointed out. "So I took the next one who asked. She's a hit woman. She makes sure that the people who bother me disappear. In fact—"

Santana watched the blonde get into her story. She saw the way Brittany's eyes lit up while making up the story. She noticed how beautiful the blonde looked in her plain, simple clothing. She felt an unbearable urge to kiss the girl. It made her feel nostalgic and dizzy, and she put a hand back on the wall to steady herself.

Brittany's eyes widened and she picked up speed. "She knows my brother in New Jersey. So you have to go now." She took Santana's hand and interlaced their fingers. Santana felt a rush of warmth coursing through her body at the blonde's touch. She got lost in her thoughts while the blonde tugged her in through the doorway.

"You don't have a brother in New Jersey Britt." Artie picked himself up from the floor. "You're an only child from Tennessee."

Brittany was supporting a lot of Santana's weight now; the blonde was stronger than she'd thought. "He's adopted. Thanks again for the stereo. Now, go away or… my wife will hurt you." She looked up at Santana.

"Yeah." Santana nodded slowly. "I will do that. Go away and never come back or I will fucking kill you"

"Come on, Baby." Brittany nudged her with her hip, and the latina stumbled into the apartment so she could slam the door behind them.

"What the hell was he doing here B?" Santana squinted at her.

"Apparently he wants me back." Brittany put her hands on her hips. She still had great hips. Santana stared and unconsciously licked her lips.

"I'm all kinds of awesome and unforgettable. What are you doing here? I thought you moved."

Oh, hell, now she had to explain things. "I did. Look, do you have any coffee? I don't feel very well."

Brittany hesitated and then said, "Sure," and moved toward the kitchen while the latina watched her, thinking unsafe thoughts.

_This is a very bad idea_, Santana told herself, and then she followed Brittany. Brittany was out of coffee, but there was some left over from the day before in the pot, so she microwaved it, watching the latina out of the corner of her eye while she worked. She was as strong and solid as she remembered. And still beautiful and sexy yet so safe. Oh, damn. She took the cup from the microwave when it dinged and put it in front of the smaller girl.

Santana drank from it and made a face.

"Sorry, that's all I have."

"No, no, it's fine B." Santana focused on her, and her face looked funny. Then she took a deep breath, flaring her nostrils, and looked better.

_Tense_, Brittany thought.

"B you remember the Cinderella deal?" Brittany nodded and Santana said, "I need a wife."

Brittany's heart kicked up speed, She felt her breath getting caught in her throat. She could feel the butterflies fluttering in her stomach and she wondered if the latina could hear the rapid beat of her heart. But she kept her face calm. "That's what you needed before San."

"No." Santana shook her head, trying to keep the want out of her voice, and the momentum kept her shaking seconds longer than necessary. "Before I needed a fake fiancé. Now Harper wants me to get married in his garden. He wants me to marry you."

Brittany sat down. Marriage. For a moment she'd almost thought her story was going to come true, that the latina was going to invite her back to be a fake fiancé for a while, but this was the real thing, and standing up in front of a minister and lying to God was not a possibility.

"Didn't you tell him we had irreconcilable differences?"

"Yeah. He told me to reconcile them." Santana waved that away. "Forget that." Santana leaned forward and presented her sentences carefully to the blonde. "The house I've got has four bedrooms. You could set up your studio in one and paint all day. I'll support you. All you have to do is show up at campus functions and be a wife. That's all. You don't have to do anything else in Prescott that you're not doing here." She frowned over what she'd said, nodded to herself, pulled her cup back, drank some more coffee, and winced. "I'll make the coffee though."

Brittany tried to think rationally. It wasn't her strong point at the best of times, and it was even worse with Santana sitting across from her in the all too attractive flesh, so she concentrated on the basics. "Ok let me get this straight. Essentially, you want me to marry you for your money. As God is your witness, if I marry you, I'll never be hungry again?"

Santana thought about it. "That pretty much covers it."_ No, it didn't. You probably haven't noticed, but I have this thing for your body, I'd like it very much if we can have all aspects of the marriage. Don't go there Lopez. Behave._

Brittany took a deep breath. "What about sex?"

Santana blinked at her. _Can she read minds? _Brittany's golden hair tumbled over her shoulders and all Santana wanted to do was tangle her fingers in it and pull Brittany toward her and kiss her senselessly. That was a bad idea, which was a shame because it had tremendous appeal. "I told you, you don't have to do anything in Prescott that you're not doing here." _Unless you want to_, she thought, looking at her piercing blue eyes shining at her. _Coz I really want to B._

Brittany folded her arms and leaned back, and it was just Santana's bad luck that she folded them under her breasts, and there went her mind again. "What are you going to do for sex?" she asked the latina.

_Probably jerk off thinking of you. Fuck. Shut up. _Santana needed a different topic fast. "That's my problem, and I'll solve it. Don't worry about it."

"You'd cheat on me? What would Harper say?"

Santana winced at the thought. She'd had enough opportunities to _cheat _on the blonde for the past few days that she was in Prescott but for some reason she found it incredibly hard to think of anyone else. She would never cheat on Brittany but even she did, she knew that Harper wasn't the kind of a man that would mind it.

"He'd probably say 'Way to go, Lopez.' College professors are not known for their fidelity B."

Brittany felt a pang of hurt in her heart when Santana didn't decline that she won't cheat. She took a deep breath and she stuck out her chin at the latina, and immediately Santana's gaze travelled down the curve of her throat.

"Ok so what about me?" she asked.

"You? Sex?" Santana hadn't thought about her having an affair. Or, rather she had thought about it, but she had thought about Brittany with her. _Some other person? I'll definitely break someone's fingers if that happens. _Santana didn't like it, she didn't want Brittany to be with anyone else and for the first time she felt something she had never felt with any woman before. Jealousy. But she couldn't afford to scare the blonde off. So she shrugged nonchalantly. "I don't care what or who you do, but just be discreet."

"Sure, that's always been one of my specialties." She took a deep breath. "You know San, I'm not sure I wouldn't like to pretend to be married for a while. I can't do it for real, the vow would be a lie to God, but I think I could pretend. It sounds sort of… secure."

Santana nodded, nudging her down the road to Prescott. "Security I can give you. And we could get married by a judge. No God in the ceremony at all."

She thought about it. "When's midnight?"

"Midnight?" Santana frowned.

"You know. When Cinderella turns back into a pumpkin. Midnight. When we stop being married."

"Oh." Santana hadn't thought far enough ahead to worry about an end. And honestly she wasn't sure If she wanted an end. "I don't know."

Brittany pursed her lips. Santana couldn't stop staring at the blonde's lips. _She had great lips. wonder what it would feel like? They look so soft and delicious. What's wrong with you Lopez. Forget her lips._

"A year? Lots of marriages hit the skids after a year. Or maybe the end of the school year. June. That's ten months. I'll flounce off at the end of June and leave you to be consoled by your adoring students and Little Gertrude."

"Ten months is fine. Whatever." Santana was having trouble focusing again. "So will you do it?" Brittany looked into the latina's eyes and Santana could feel herself getting lost in Brittany's baby blues. She had never stared in to a woman's eyes and she had always felt uncomfortable even thinking about it. But gazing in to Brittany's eyes gave her a sense of peace and calm. Santana suddenly straightened and patted her jacket pocket. "Wait a minute. Let me do this right." She pulled out the ring they'd used the last time they were in Prescott and got down on one knee and offered it to the blonde, and for some reason, her hand shook. Santana took a deep breath. "Brittany, will you marry me?"

Brittany felt her throat catch as she looked at her old ring, the tiny sapphire blinking in the lamplight. It was pretty and sweet, the kind of ring the Brittany they made up would love. Santana had been right to insist on it. Brittany Pierce still liked the chased silver and free-form pearls, but future Mrs. Brittany Pierce-Lopez would want this ring. If she put it back on, she'd be future Mrs. Brittany Pierce-Lopez again; Santana obviously thought she still was. If Brittany went along with it, she could have everything she wanted and needed.

_I guess it's time for a change_, she told herself. _Stop being such a coward_. She nodded at Santana and said "Yes," and Santana exhaled looking genuinely happy and slipped the ring on her finger, fumbling a little because her hands were shaking and so were Brittany's.

_Oh, my God,_ she thought the moment she felt her hand in the latina's. _What am I doing?_

Santana held both of Brittany's hands in hers as they both stared at the ring on Brittany's finger. She slowly lifted her gaze away from the ring and locked eyes with the blonde once again. They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity and Brittany slowly kneeled down next to the latina. Brittany looked at Santana's lips and then licked her own before looking back at the latina's eyes. Santana leaned a fraction of an inch closer to the blonde. Just as Brittany was about to lean in LT let out a loud groan breaking the two women out of their trance. Santana stared at the blonde for a second more before smiling softly and standing up and pulling the blonde up with her.

"Ok then let's get started," and Brittany pulled her hand back.

"Started on what?"

"Calling movers," Santana said. "Packing your clothes." She frowned slightly as she mentioned Brittany's clothes.

"We've got to get back to Prescott tonight B. Our return flight leaves at seven."

Brittany's jaw dropped. "Tonight?"

"Why wait?"

Brittany looked around the apartment she'd had for eight years. She'd loved it, but now it was too small, like her old life. Just like in the fairy tale: the prince had come along and swept her out of the ashes, and it would ruin the story if they stopped to pack or cancel the phone. "All right." She stood up. "All right, then. Let's go."

She watched bemused as Santana called the movers, who agreed to come on Wednesday. Then she called Quinn, who laughed when she told her she was going to Prescott and promised to take the day off from school to watch the movers, especially when they were packing Brittany's stained glass lamp. Santana left to buy a travel case for the cats, and when she got back, Brittany had her clothes packed and was sitting on the boxes, feeling a little lost.

Santana stood in front of her, looking efficient and in charge and that didn't help her qualms any.

"Our return flight is in two hours," the latina told her. "I picked up tranquilizers for the cats. See if you can find Annie." Santana looked at LT sprawled out on the floor, asleep in the sun. "I have enough for two in case LT regains consciousness."

"Forget LT, give them to me," Brittany said.

* * *

Brittany was so stunned when she saw Santana's house that she sat down on the curb to catch her breath. It was her house, gleaming yellow in the twilight just the way she'd imagined it. Less than twelve hours earlier she'd been stuck in her old story, and now she'd been given everything she wanted for her new one. It seemed too good to be true, but there was the house in front of her. Santana paid the cab driver and then turned and saw her on the curb.

"What the hell are you doing B?"

"It's perfect San," she told the latina.

"Good, I'm glad" Santana smiled at her. "Now get up off the curb before the neighbours think you're crazy."

Brittany pouted and thought about telling the latina where she could put the neighbours but didn't. This is Santana's story, she reminded herself as she stood up. Then she looked at the house again, so beautiful in the autumn evening. There was no reason she couldn't make Santana's story part of hers, at least the house part. In a way it already was; Santana had painted it yellow for her.

But after the tour of the house, she knew it was still Santana's story and still the latina's house. True, the house did have glowing amber wood floors and an ornate mantel and an oak staircase, but every single wall was painted stark white.

She looked at Santana in despair. "Seriously San? White?"

Santana frowned at her, defensive. "What? It looks clean. And neat."

Neat. Something she obviously wasn't. The tension of the past day made her temper spurt. "Are you kidding? We could operate in here. I can't live in a hospital room, Santana. And, my God, this furniture, all this leather and metal stuff. I can't live like this."

Santana sat down, looking exhausted and pulled the cat carrier toward her. "So you can mix in some of your stuff when the movers send it." Santana opened the door to the cat carrier and looked inside.

"Hello?"

"They're still asleep." Brittany looked around at the black leather and chrome. "I don't think our furniture is going to mix."

"Let's cross that bridge when we come to it B." Santana picked up one of her boxes and started upstairs. "The house is the least of our problems."

Brittany looked around at the white walls and ugly furniture. "No, it isn't," she said. Whether the latina liked it or not, her furniture was going to have to go and Brittany's would have to come in. She felt her spirits rise at the thought.

Santana would like it once she saw Brittany's things in the house. Her stuff was old-fashioned and warm, just like the house. Santana would love it once she saw it. She'd say, "Brittany, it's amazing what colour can do for a house. Thank you." And she'd smile and the latina would smile and the cats would curl up in the windows and they'd live happily ever after.

Feeling much better, Brittany picked up a box and followed Santana upstairs.

Once she'd helped Brittany unpack and she'd hung her clothes in the empty bedroom across the hall from Santana's, she explored the house, making plans, mentally moving her furniture in and burning Santana's. The moon was high by the time she climbed the stairs again, and Santana was asleep in the only bed.

"Hey." She poked her.

"Mmmphf."

"Hey." She poked the latina harder.

"What?"

"Shouldn't you be on the couch like a gentlewoman? It's not big enough for me. My legs are too long"

"I never said I was a gentlewoman," Santana mumbled sleepily. "This is a king size. I'm so tired I couldn't find you if I wanted you. So just go to sleep."

As a speech, it was a lot more reassuring than flattering, but she was exhausted too, so she knew how Santana felt. She went across the hall and changed into her night shirt and took her soap and toothbrush into the bathroom. By the time she was ready for bed, Santana was asleep again.

She crawled in beside the latina and fell asleep almost instantly, dreaming of gleaming wood floors with LT sprawled in the sunlight.

* * *

Santana woke up the next morning with her arm wrapped tightly around Brittany, pressed close against her back. She was wearing the same thin cotton T-shirt she wore the night they'd spent in the motel, but this time they were in the same bed. And Santana was awake in more ways than one.

_Move before she wakes up perv_, Santana told herself, but she didn't want to. Brittany was so soft and warm and smooth and Santana felt so good pressed up against the blonde. It took all the self-control she had not to move her hand up to the fullness of her breast and give it a light squeeze. _She'd be terrific to sleep with in the winter_, she thought as she moved her cheek against Brittany's hair, and inhaling her scent. Then she realized that she wouldn't be sleeping with Brittany in the winter. It made her heart hurt again and she quickly tried to push the thoughts away. _She'd be terrific to sleep with anytime though,_ Santana thought, growing dizzy with the thought. _Maybe we could_…_No Lopez, Stop it now_. The last thing in the world she needed was to have an affair with her temporary wife. That would simply add an emotional element to an already impossible situation. _No, no, no._

_So why is your arm still around her?_ she asked herself. But before she could do anything the blonde stirred.

"Why is your arm around me?" Brittany asked sleepily.

_Because you are so soft and smooth and warm. Fuck it Lopez, say something clever_

"I never had a teddy bear when I was little." Santana held herself very still. "I'm compensating. Go back to sleep. This is completely asexual."

_What the hell was that?_

"I don't think so." Brittany yawned and stretched a little, which compounded Santana's problem. "Is that a gun in your pajamas, or are you just really happy to wake up with me?"

_Shit_

Santana quickly rolled away from her, trying to hide her front and got up to get dressed. "That's your imagination Brittany."

"Right, whatever you say San" she said, and fell back asleep.

She had to be the calmest woman in the world. Either that or she trusted Santana completely. That was depressing somehow. Santana stared at the blonde for a moment more and went to take a cold shower.

After Santana left, Brittany got up and took a cold shower.

_Stop thinking about her like that Brittany._ She told herself as she shuddered under the icy water. _Stop thinking about how good she felt wrapped around you. Stop thinking about how good all that hardness would have felt moving inside you._

She felt hot in spite of the cold water. _Stop it Brittany. Yeah she's hot and sexy as hell but she's not the kind of person you wanna get involved with. Just marry her and forget her. _

_Right_.


End file.
